My husband said: “Wow, this pudding is fantastic!” Now, you have to understand that he’s a Type 1 diabetic, and he steers away from desserts 95% of the time, so any time he does eat dessert he thinks he’s in heaven. But I’ll attest – this rice pudding is fabulous.

You know how it is when you read some recipe somewhere and it just plain “speaks” to you? That’s what happened when I was reading Baking Banter, the baking blog from King Arthur Flour. I subscribe to their blog through Google Reader, and the varied bakers post several times a week. And I just love how they design a recipe – how they test and change, taste and change, until they finally get it right. And this recipe is just absolutely SPOT-ON! Kuddos to Mary Jane Robbins, who developed this recipe for King Arthur.

I have another recipe for rice pudding here on my blog. And in comparing this one to the other one, they’re very similar. And yet, I think this one is better (probably because of the cream added). Much better. I liked the creamy texture of this one. The little bit of bite to the rice (particularly you don’t want to overcook the rice, because then it would be mushy). The other aspect of this pudding is its focus on the vanilla. Two different types of (King Arthur) vanilla are called for here. I used two different types I had on my pantry shelf, neither of which are King Arthur. Use your best vanilla to stir in after the pudding is cooked.

Surely, I should have taken a photo of the pudding as it was simmering away, with my handy-dandy Stirr device (now called a RoboStir – very inexpensive if you’re interested) jittering around inside the pan. Here at right is a picture I found online. I’ve written about it before, but it’s a battery-operated device that sits inside the pan, has silicone feet and once you turn it on (mine has 4 speeds), it jitters itself around the pan, turning in circles to keep the pot contents moving – stirring. It’s an automatic stirring device is all I can tell you, and it worked SO perfectly for this pudding! I also use it on the rare occasions I make risotto. It’s ideal for sauces.  Just an aside about this device – if you go online, lots of people don’t like it. Including Consumer Reports, who found it worked for very few things. A thick sauce will stop it cold. Some people think it’s a joke. Mine works well – have never used it except on the lowest speed. It doesn’t do dry ingredients (like toasting nuts) or frying onions as it just pushes the items out to the edges of the pan. It must have liquid to help it move the contents. It does require a pan with a sufficient flat surface AND the cooktop needs to be level. If it’s not level, the device will simply gravitate to the lowest spot and sit there, still jittering, but it won’t migrate around the pan as it’s designed to do. My dear hubby (DH) did level my range for me last year. I didn’t realize how “off” it was. I made this pudding in a pan with rounded edges – mine is a Caphalon nonstick pan – a saucier pan that Caphalon doesn’t make anymore, but a similar one would work because it has a gently rounded bottom edge – a Calphalon Unison Nonstick 4-Quart Pot with Lid. The key is the sloping edge – you don’t want a squared-off 90° angle as it’s very difficult to stir that corner (whether you’re using a stirring device or an ordinary spoon) and keep the pudding from burning. Or if you’re making a sauce, or a creamy soup. This particular pot is called a soup pot.

Okay, so here’s how you make it – you combine the whole milk, some of the cream, sugar (and not very much of it), some of the vanilla and Arborio rice (a short grain rice, which works best for rice pudding – you can also use sushi rice). Once you bring it to a simmer, reduce the heat and simmer very slowly, stirring very frequently, for about 30 minutes. At this point start tasting the rice – it still wants to have a little tiny bit of bite (toothsome-ness, I call it). Continue simmering until it’s just barely done. Remove, allow to cool, stirring it every so often so a skin doesn’t form on the top (or put a piece of plastic wrap directly down on the surface), and you add a little bit more cream and more vanilla. Done. Once cool you can put it into ramekins, or just store in a plastic container and dish out what you want later. I found that the pudding was still very VERY loose once I took it off the heat, but I was assured in the recipe that it would firm up. Yes, indeed it did! In fact, when I went to serve it, I needed to add milk to it to kind of thin it a bit. It was amply thick at that point.

In most respects, this pudding is made like a risotto, except you start off with all the liquid in the pan at the beginning rather than adding it now and then. It’s EASY to make – although you do have to keep your eye on it. I made this as part of a dinner we took to our pastor and his family since he’s recently had surgery. But I made a double batch and kept a little bit of it for ourselves. What a treat.

What’s good: every single solitary thing about it. A must make – if you like puddings, and especially rice pudding! The vanilla flavor predominates (in a very good way).

What’s not: well, it does take some patience and hovering (unless you have one of the stirring devices). I’ll definitely be making this again!

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Who knew a pork roast could taste so moist and flavorful, and that black beans and rice cooked underneath the pork could absorb so much flavor from the meat drippings?

My friend Cherrie gave me a cookbook called Perfect One-Dish Dinners: All You Need for Easy Get-Togethers. I hadn’t cooked anything from it, although I’d read through it and knew I wanted to. The cookbook assumes that you want to entertain occasionally, but you want to cook everything in one pot (for ease), but also have it be nice enough for guests – and tasty enough to wow them a little.

We were having Cherrie and Bud over for dinner, so it was a perfect opportunity to try something from this cookbook. I told my DH about 2 recipes – a stuffed chicken breast and a stuffed pork loin and gave him the choice. He chose the pork. He went off shopping for me (bless his heart – he loves to go grocery shopping!).

It’s kind of a long story, but my DH could not find the long, long package of boneless pork loin at Costco. He phoned me in distress – what should he do? I finally told him to buy a sirloin package he’d found instead. But truthfully, I’d never fixed a sirloin pork roast before, so didn’t know how I was going to adapt the recipe. As it turned out, it wasn’t a problem. We found an illustration of a pig (butchered), and I ended up following the directions just as if it was a boneless pork loin and it cooked the same. But instead of a longer roast in one piece, I actually cooked 2 of the sirloin roasts (way too much for 4 people – the Costco package contains 4 chubs of sirloin roast and I’d say each one easily serves 4 people).

First I made up the adobo-chorizo stuffing. I used the dry Spanish chorizo – the recipe doesn’t specify, but just called for fully-cooked chorizo. Anyway, that was cut up into chunks (after peeling off the skin). It gets whizzed up in the food processor with fresh cilantro, some garlic you’ve cooked in olive oil, some chipotle chiles in adobo, dry bread crumbs and ground cumin. I cut deep slits in the pork roast and gently opened it up to push in the stuffing.

My DH helped me tie up the roasts – you don’t want the filling to leak out. It’s a dry kind of filling, so it really shouldn’t leak, exactly.

Then you mix up some spices – also adobo style – cumin, salt, pepper, paprika, brown sugar – and gently roll the roast in those seasonings. Including the ends, which often get overlooked.  They were now ready for baking.

In the bottom photo you can see the roast is sitting on a rack and it’s in a roasting pan (mine is nonstick). It went into a 250° oven for about 1 1/2 hours – until the meat had reached about 125° (not cooked sufficiently yet). Then, you remove the meat and the rack and set it aside momentarily. Tick the oven up to 400°. Everything was all ready to go – I’d pressure cooked some black beans (11 minutes after a 1-hour water soak), measured long grain rice and opened a can of diced tomatoes. And measured out chicken broth. All that was dumped into the bottom of the pan and stirred around. There were a few – really very few drips on the pan bottom – just enough to give some flavorful Chorizo and cumin flavoring to the rice. The roast went back in with the rack, which sat just above the beans and rice below. Back into the oven it went, and the rice was done in exactly 20 minutes, just as the recipe indicated.

The pan was removed from the oven, the roast set aside for a few minutes to rest, and I covered the beans and rice with foil so it wouldn’t get cold. Meanwhile I mixed up the salad and got everything all ready. The meat was sliced and I quickly poured the beans and rice down both sides and served it. I sprinkled on some cilantro, but forgot the green onions! I didn’t make anything other than the salad.

What’s good: that it cooked all in one pan. I won’t exactly call this a cinchy, easy dish, but it’s not all that difficult, either. Much of it could be done ahead of time. The pork roast bakes untended for 90 minutes or so, and then another 20 minutes once you add the beans and rice. So the labor part can all be done at the beginning, or earlier in the day, or even the day before. It makes a lovely presentation – especially on a bright contrasting platter. And the flavor was wonderful. I’d definitely make this again and especially for guests. Next time I would probably make some kind of colorful veggie (broccoli? asparagus? red bell peppers?), although it really doesn’t need it. We just like veggies and prefer them to carbs. But oh, these carbs were delish and especially good along side the slices of pork. And even though this recipe is long and has a rather long list of directions, it’s not hard.
What’s not: absolutely nothing at all.

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A luscious salad – different – healthy, really – because it doesn’t have all that much oil in it – hard to believe it could taste so good! Dried figs give it a base, and you do add some crumbled bacon.

Having been asked to bring a salad to dinner at friends recently, I ransacked my to-try file, to find something that would complement Thomas Keller’s Roast Chicken and Vegetables, which my friend Donna was going to make. Donna reads my blog (thank you, Donna!) and is always so kind to tell me how much she likes it. Music to any blogger’s ears, I’ll tell ya!

It didn’t really take much to make this dressing – it’s an interesting one – it uses dried figs, balsamic vinegar (I used a fruit-flavored one, but you can use plain too), water, chicken broth (yes, really, chicken broth), honey, shallots and fresh thyme. All things I had on hand. The figs are simmered for

just a minute in the balsamic vinegar and allowed to “steep” or sit while you pull together the rest of the ingredients. Then it’s all whizzed up in the blender. Meanwhile, I chopped up and fried a bunch of bacon. I made this salad twice, on consecutive nights, and used different greens. I couldn’t find arugula the first day, so I substituted Romaine, leaf lettuce and microgreens. I actually think the salad needs some bitter greens to offset the fig-sweetened dressing, so the second time my DH was able to find arugula and I used Feta cheese  that time, rather than the cotija I’d tried the first time. The original recipe (from Cooking Light) called for goat cheese, but I didn’t have any. Nor did I really want to buy a log of goat cheese when I only needed a little bit for the salad. I almost always have Feta on hand, which keeps soaking in brine for many, many weeks. I did have cotija (it’s a dry, salty Mexican cheese that’s used mostly for garnish), so I used that one time.

The second night (pictured above) I had arugula, but not quite enough dressing, so I just added more EVOO and another little jot of balsamic vinegar to what I had left from the previous night, and it was plenty for a salad for 4.

What’s good: the low-calorie, low-fat aspect of the dressing. Of course, bacon kind of puts it over the top, but once you divide it among several people, no one has all that much bacon. I added pine nuts one night just because I thought the salad needed some kind of crunch to it. Since it doesn’t have any added vegetables, I really did think it needed some added texture.

What’s not: nothing at all – just know this isn’t any standard kind of vinaigrette – it’s sweet from the figs, but will complement lots of meals – pork for sure – often pork is accompanied by fruit.

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When I ponder something new to fix for dinner, I can’t say that I ever think about choosing Malaysian food! I don’t know that I’ve ever had Malaysian food, for that matter, until now!

I’d defrosted some pork – one of the few remaining packages from the 4-H Berkshire pig we bought over a year ago. I still have some bacon and ham and that’s about it. Even though the package said it was country ribs, it was a very small package, so I decided to spread out the pork wealth by making something like stew. As is my usual method, I went to Eat Your Books, where I have listed nearly all of my cookbooks. I put in “pork stew” and within seconds I had a list of the dozens and dozens of recipes contained in my own cookbooks. Well no, it doesn’t really have the recipes, it just has the title and the list of ingredients (by name, not quantity), which makes it quite simple to deduce if I have the ingredients on hand. In this particular recipe, yes, I had the pork, coconut milk, onions, white wine, ginger, tomatoes, fresh mint and cilantro. I didn’t have fresh basil, but I overlooked that one.

I just love that website – it makes finding a recipe so simple. Once I chose this recipe, I glanced at what cookbook – how funny – it’s from my mostly new-favorite book – The Essential New York Times Cookbook: Classic Recipes for a New Century. And better yet, once I pulled out the book itself, I found that I had already flagged the recipe – but just hadn’t gotten around to making it! All serendipity – it was meant to be!

The cookbook version suggests Boston butt or pork shoulder. I assumed the cooking time wouldn’t be much different for the country ribs. It also has you make it all on the stovetop, whereas I had decided to use the pressure cooker, which worked like a charm. The preparation is the same – it’s just the difference of the cooking time (10 minutes by pressure cooker, and about 60-90 minutes on the stovetop).

The pork stew chunks are dredged in a spicy mixture of curry powder, cumin and paprika. I had a hot curry powder, so I didn’t add cayenne as listed in the recipe. (Although, I couldn’t really discern any heat in the finished dish, so it was more mild than anticipated.) They were browned well in oil, removed, then I sautéed the onions (it called for red, I only had a yellow one). Then you add in all the other ingredients, including garlic and simmer. That’s when I put on the lid and pressure cooked it for 9 minutes.  I had a bit of coconut milk left over (I made half of the recipe you see below) so I just added it in at the last, along with the fresh green beans. I simmered them just until they were barely cooked through. Because we limit white carbs, I only used about 2-3 T. of cooked rice in each bowl, ladled the soup around the outer rim (so we could see the rice), then sprinkled on the garnishes. The lime juice adds a really important taste element – be sure to add that part. I liked the flavor combination from the spices (paprika, cumin and curry). The garnish is a combo of fresh mint, fresh cilantro, basil (if you have it, I didn’t), peanuts (I didn’t have peanuts, but I did have sliced almonds so I chopped those up) and lime juice. That garnish adds a wonderful touch to the taste.

What’s good: just the overall flavor of the gravy or soup part – it’s loaded with taste. The pork was nicely cooked, although not overly so. It might have been able to take another minute or two in the pressure cooker. I’m sure this could be made the day ahead, even. Just make the garnishes at the last minute. And the left overs – they were wonderful.
What’s not: nothing, really.

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Fans of bread pudding will stand up and cheer, especially if you/they like pumpkin. The bread pudding is VERY easy to make – truly – although it does need to rest overnight before baking.

This recipe had been in my to-try file for several years. It came from Diane Phillip’s cookbook, Happy Holidays from the Diva of Do-Ahead: A Year of Feasts to Celebrate With Family And Friends. I own one of her cookbooks, but not this one – I think I found it at my local library and had made photocopies of recipes that sounded right down my alley. This was one. I needed a dessert that could be made ahead. Yes, you can mix it up ahead – and make the sauce that goes with it ahead too – but you do need to bake it somewhere close to serving time. I baked it a few hours ahead and then kept it heated in a very very low oven for an hour. The sauce I made the day before, which was good, as it said it will keep chilled in the refrigerator for up to 72 hours ahead. Diane Phillips is a master of the do-ahead meal. She and Phillis Carey teach a duo class at least once a year, near Christmastime.

The only problematical ingredient in making this is challah. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to find it at any of my local markets, but was surprised to find Trader Joe’s has it. I will say, however, that their challah is very dense. I expected it to be lighter in texture, but it was not at all. If you can’t find challah, you could use King’s Hawaiian Bread instead – it’s a spongy, eggy bread, but it’s also very sweet, so I would reduce the sugar some in the recipe – by about a third is a guess. The bread gets torn up into a bunch of small pieces, bite-sized is best. Then you mix up the pumpkin stuff – eggs, brown sugar, canned pumpkin, cream and lots of good spices and it’s mixed into the bread. Stir it around a bunch, then pour it all into a 9×13 pan (I would use glass or nonstick, not metal), press any bread pieces down into the liquidy mixture (there won’t be much), cover and chill for at least 12 hours (or up to 72). You do have to bring it back to room temp (about an hour) before baking. Keep it covered and bake for 35-40 minutes.

IMPORTANT: I’ve included notes in the recipe below about the bread – if the challah is very dense, you may need more of the pumpkin mixture to soak into the bread – increase those ingredients some to compensate. You want the bread pudding to have ample gooey-ness and it won’t if the bread is dense or dry.

Ideally, serve this warm. I baked it a few hours ahead and just reheated it in a 175° oven for about 30 minutes before serving. Whatever you do, don’t let it dry out.

What absolutely MAKES this dessert is the sauce. It’s not hard to make, but it does take a bit of time to do. It’s 3 parts whole milk and 1 part cream, so it’s not all that bad in the fat department. You steep the milk with crystallized ginger pieces and the zest of an orange. Those are strained out, then you make the sauce part with egg yolks, sugar, cornstarch and some orange liqueur and cream added in at the end. BE SURE to strain the sauce at the end as you’ll invariably get some egg white solids in there, and it’s not so fun finding those in your super-smooth pudding or sauce when you serve it! I prepared it the day before, which made for easy reheating. Actually I warmed the sauce on the stove – watching it carefully so it wouldn’t burn, then I placed the saucepan right in the 175°oven with the bread pudding I warmed.

I had ample sauce left over – because people didn’t take enough of the sauce when they served themselves – but I found this sauce is absolutely wonderful as a pudding! I gave some to a friend and we had some of it a few days later. It’s not totally firm like most puddings, it’s looser, but you can see in the photo above, it’s still almost pudding consistency. If you want to make this AS a pudding, reduce the milk quantity down to 2 1/2 cups rather than 3.

What’s good: the sauce is the best part, but I like pumpkin anything, so I enjoyed that too. I liked making this because most of the work is done ahead of time.
What’s not: really nothing. I’d make this again – but I would increase the pumpkin and egg mixture so it’s more gooey. That’s it.

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An easy sauce – relatively speaking – to make to fancify a lovely grilled steak.

Deciding that we would have a really nice dinner, I planned ahead a few hours and marinated the steak first. I can’t say that the marinade was all that memorable, although it was a bit different because of some additional spices used (from Ree Drummond’s website, Pioneer Woman). She served the marinated steak with canned beans. I wanted something a bit more sophisticated, but next time I wouldn’t mix the two (the marinade and the mushroom sauce). So, I’m just giving you the recipe for the sauce. Truth to tell, I liked the sauce a whole lot better than the marinade!

Anyway, the sauce is fairly straight forward – have mushrooms? Can make! You will need a shallot, a little bit of cream, some good Scotch whiskey (I have a bottle of Dalwhinnie single malt that I bought about 12 years ago at the Glasgow airport that still has about 1/3 remaining – it was almost a waste to use that good single malt for a sauce – but it’s the only Scotch I had in the liquor cabinet!). Lemon zest adds a nice piquant addition – you really won’t quite know it’s there, but it adds a bit of flavor depth.

The rest of the dinner came together rather quickly – Brussels sprouts, parsnips and a nice green salad. Sometimes it’s the right thing to have a plain steak – my DH’s go-to version utilizes garlic salt and that’s it – but this time I wanted it to be something different. Nice. Fancy. It was.

What’s good: the mushroom flavor, and you can distinguish the Scotch, so if it’s not your thing, you can leave it out. Use a little medium or cream sherry instead. Yes, I’d make it again, but I would try to do it an hour ahead – it’s a bit labor intensive at the last minute. Not for long, but I wouldn’t want to be making it when I have a house full of people.

What’s not: really nothing – next time I would try to find some of the more exotic mushrooms, though. Am sure the flavor would be enhanced!

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What I had on hand were tangerines. Other than eating them out of hand, I didn’t have many thoughts on what to do with them. Aha! Dressing. And I found a recipe in my collection that I’d never made, although I’d had it at a cooking class some years ago.

Some years ago my friend Cherrie and our respective husbands attended a wine tasting event at our local Bristol Farms market (a very upscale grocery store here in So. California). At the time (and perhaps still) a gentleman named Bruce Jacobs was the Executive Chef there, and he and his staff served a dinner paired with the wine. An early course was a lovely salad with a warm round of lightly sautéed goat cheese (lightly breaded with Panko, I think) and the greens were drizzled with this dressing. It was absolutely perfect for that salad.

With the tangerines I had, which came from a tree we have at our desert house, this seemed the right thing to do with them. What I will tell you is that when you mix a lot of fruit juice in a salad dressing, and you dress your salad – it will more quickly wilt the fancy lettuces (like leaf lettuce or soft spring greens). My recollection is that he served this with a curly endive salad, which is a sturdy green that can hold up against a citrus juice dressing. I used Romaine. Spinach should work too. The dressing was made in the food processor, but it may not matter because the dressing doesn’t emulsify very much (there isn’t any egg or mustard, or sour cream to bind it). Although as I type this I made the dressing yesterday, and it is still holding together just as in the photograph above. So maybe it does emulsify more than I think it does.

My only advice: serve this with some kind of fruit in it – like the mandarin oranges I used, or some dried cranberries. Sliced almonds would be nice too. You could also make the salad with some cabbage added, or spinach (certainly very sturdy greens). If you don’t like rosemary, certainly any other fresh herb would work (tarragon, thyme for instance).

What’s good: the tangy tangerine flavor – and it’s a very light dressing. I did use extra virgin olive oil (it calls for “olive oil,” so the extra virgin really isn’t necessary, but I didn’t have anything else). You don’t want the oil to overpower the delicateness of the tangerine juice, that’s all. Adjust the sweetness to your own tastes – and it may depend on how tart the tangerines are too!

What’s not: don’t keep it too long – I’d suggest using it up within about 4-5 days if you can.

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Do you have a pressure cooker? I don’t use mine enough, but when I do, I’m so delighted with the results. Usually parsnips take a good long time to cook. Not this way!

It was last Sunday afternoon. I went to a concert at our church – to hear the Male Chorale from Cal Baptist (a college in Riverside, 40 miles or so east of where we live). What a performance it was, and I loved every minute of it. But when I got home it was later than I’d planned and I’d not done much preparation for dinner! My DH helped me some – he prepped the Brussels Sprouts with Maple Syrup. I had made a new salad dressing (I’ll post it soon). I’d marinated some steaks and just needed to make the sauce to go on them, chop the salad and pan roast the Brussels sprouts. I’d also wanted to use the parsnips too, that were growing feathery roots in my vegetable bin. I did a quick search on the internet and found something immediately that sounded good. I had oranges from our trees and I had the pressure cooker all ready!

First I peeled the parsnips, which took about a minute. I sliced them into smaller pieces, threw them in the pot, added a little bit of butter, zested the orange (and set that aside for later), then squeezed the juice. The recipe indicated some sugar, salt and that was it. They were pressure cooked for 5 minutes and I did a quick cool-down under the faucet and into a serving bowl they went with a sprinkle of Italian parsley and the orange zest. Delicious. It’s not really a “sauce,” like I think of sauce – to me sauce means something thickened – not a jus. This was just orange juice that permeated the parsnips like magic. It was very low calorie – 104 calories and 2 grams of fat per serving.

What’s good: how easy and quick it was to make. I may try this same recipe with carrots. You could make it with no butter (the original didn’t have any added fat), but I did use a little bit. Altogether delicious. My DH could hardly get enough of them.

What’s not: nothing! Just be careful and don’t over cook them.

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Do you ever wish you had something to serve with or on sausages? Sausages are kind of – sort of – bland and plain if served all by themselves. Mostly I serve them with good mustard. Well, here’s an easy gravy that goes well with just about any kind of sausages (here it’s with German Bratwurst and a Nuremburger sausage).

It’s just amazing what you’ll find on the internet nowadays. I wanted something to serve with sausages, so I did a search for “what to serve with sausage” and up came a long list of links, mostly to something called sticky onion gravy. Having never heard of sticky onion anything, I took a look at nearly all the recipes. This is a British sauce that is a favorite in pubs. If you’ve ever been to Britain, you know about bangers and mash (bangers just means sausages – but they’re nothing like American breakfast sausage or raw Italian sausage, nor are they anything like German bratwurst either). Usually they are served with mash – mashed potatoes. And in some pubs they spoon on an onion sauce or gravy to go with it. I would assume it’s called sticky because this sauce is thickened with cornstarch and one hopes it will stick some to the bites of sausage.

Finally I settled on a recipe at ask.com and after making it and tasting it, I made some changes to it. Ideally you would serve this with mashed potatoes. We try to limit carbs – particularly white carbs – so I served this with braised red cabbage and apples on the side.

The onions do need to cook awhile – and you particularly don’t want to brown them. That point was stressed in most of the recipes, including Jamie Oliver’s version. So you cook them long and slow (about 30 minutes or more), then you make the sauce part (beef broth, some wine, balsamic vinegar, a little sugar, and I added some Worcestershire and sherry vinegar also). It can sit on the stove over very low heat for awhile – just add a bit more water if it gets too dry.

Mine did just that, so I didn’t have all that much sauce. If you don’t want to use wine, just add more water. The taste of the beef stock or broth will determine how flavorful it is – I used Penzey’s soup bases for the broth and with 2 cups water with it and a cup of wine.

We’d purchased some really good sausages from a deli – they were already cooked, so all I had to do was simmer them in water for 6-8 minutes and they were ready to serve. The onion sauce is spooned over them – about 1/2 cup per serving. If you have mashed potatoes, it would make one delicious morsel with a bite of sausage, an onion draped over it, then pushed into a little bit of potato. Yum.

What’s good: that it goes really well with sausages or some kind of meat. It’s not rich. It’s not some “wow” sauce you’ll want to make for special occasions – this is a simple saucy gravy to give some  extra flavor, texture and moisture to a protein you’re serving or as a sauce for mashed potatoes. I think it would be great with left over roast beef or roast pork.

What’s not: it does take some time to make – at least 45 minutes.

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Oh gosh, was this cake ever good. And lick-your-lips tasty. And easy! And, and, and. All the superlatives you want to use. Chocolatey, yes. Light in texture, yes. Can I repeat the “easy” word?

At the cooking class a few weeks ago with Phillis Carey, she did 4 soups and a dessert. She always says that people (us, the students) complain if she doesn’t make dessert. Well, I’m so glad she did make dessert, because this recipe is a real winner. I think Phillis has shared this recipe before – probably before I started writing a blog, because it seemed very familiar when she made it and served it. It’s all mixed up in a bowl, baked a short period of time, really, and while it’s baking you make the frosting which needs to be poured onto the warm (not hot) cake and allowed to cool for at least 30 minutes. The frosting begins to set up almost immediately. Oh, it was SO good!

There’s only one really big “condition” about making this – you need a 10×15 sheet pan (jelly roll pan with a 1-inch height). It’s got to be a 10×15. You could make it in a 9×13 cake pan, but it will be a thicker cake and require longer baking. I suppose that would work. I actually ordered the cake pan Phillis used – a Parrish Magic Line 10 x 15 x 1 Inch Jelly Roll/Cookie Sheet. She brought the pan from home because most cooking schools don’t have this cake pan size! Don’t get confused with the pans – the company (and amazon, at the link above) also sells a 10×15 deeper 2-inch cake pan too (which probably would work), but this recipe just plain works perfectly in the 10×15. The pan has a flat side lip on the edges – a flat edge that makes for easy grabbing right out of the oven. NOTE: when you click to the actual pan through the link above, it SAYS it’s an 11×15 pan – and if you measure it edge to edge, it is 11×15, but the interior is 10 inches. And make sure you get the one with the 1-inch depth – they also have a cookie sheet (no edges). Read the description carefully.

So, now, back to the cake. You melt butter, coffee, cocoa powder and oil and add it to the dry ingredients with some buttermilk and eggs. Just whisk well and pour into the greased or sprayed cake pan. It bakes for about 18-20 minutes. During the last few minutes before the cake comes out of the oven make the frosting: cook milk, butter and cocoa, add powdered sugar and vanilla. It can sit for about 10 minutes, so in that interim the cake will be cooling and then you pour the frosting over the still-warm cake, spread and sprinkle on the pecans. Allow to cool. See, I said it was easy!

What’s good: gosh, the cake was so full of chocolate flavor. The coffee or espresso you add to it isn’t discernible, but the food scientists say coffee brings out the best in chocolate. And the frosting is delicious – not too thick and not too sweet. Just right.

What’s not: really, nothing. It’s so easy. Make it!

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