Yet another (good) recipe for grilled chicken. Can’t ever have enough. This one is marinated with a variety of things (nothing difficult or odd) and a few tablespoons of Grand Marnier, then it’s grilled. Done. Easy.

Making this chicken was kind of an afterthought. I had decided I was going to make the Summer Grilled Panzanella Salad. But I knew we needed something else with it – some protein. So I opened up one of my favorite cookbooks, Hugh Carpenter’s Hot Barbecue. This recipe popped out at me. Although the orange flavoring didn’t exactly fit with the panzanella bread salad, I decided it was good enough. I had all of the ingredients on hand (goody!) so it was simple to combine the marinade and let it chill out for awhile before grilling.

It was altogether easy to make. The marinade ingredients are combined, divided in half (you marinate the chicken in half and glaze the grilling chicken with the other half and pour any left over marinade on the chicken when it’s served) and then you let the chicken chill for 1-8 hours. The chicken is grilled at a medium heat (350°) for 12 minutes per side, then you just keep grilling it until it reaches 160° on an instant read thermometer. I think it took about 30 minutes altogether. Serve it right away. I’d purchased drumsticks and thighs (you could do breasts, but it will take less time on the grill, and I think I’d turn down the heat a little after the initial grill-mark marking).

What I liked: the marinade gave the chicken a very nice, mellow orange flavor – I liked it. A lot. I’d make it again for sure with no changes to the recipe at all. It’s also EASY.

What I didn’t like: nothing at all.

printer-friendly PDF
MasterCook 5+ import file – right click to save file, run MC, then File|Import

Tweet

These camels were part of a nativity scene from Africa. The animals (instead of cows) included hippos and a lion. They all were made from thin strips of aluminum from soft drink cans, woven into a wire frame. They were absolutely adorable, and I’d have bought one if they’d been for sale.

Tweet

Baking Brie in a pastry crust is anything but new – except that this one is made with dried cherries and pecans (or you can use hazelnuts if you like them) and honey. It’s quite easy to make, everything considered, and after baking, it needs to sit out for about 30-40 minutes before you cut into it, so you can bake it before your party and have it come out of the oven half an hour before people arrive.

A few days ago I mentioned that I had a cooking class at my home. There are any number of recipes on my blog from classes with Tarla (just do a search for Tarla and they’ll all come up). Here’s another one – an easy one and very, very festive. Perfect for the holidays. Make this at home up to the point of baking, and take it to someone else’s home and bake it there. It’s just that it MUST sit for 30-40 minutes – if you cut into it sooner the cheese will just ooze out completely. You don’t want that! So just plan ahead.

The puff pastry you buy ready made (I wouldn’t wish anyone to try to make the stuff – much, much too labor intensive). The Brie you buy in a round and cut off the top crust, then place it on top of the puff pastry. The dried cherries, nuts and honey are mixed together and spread on top of the Brie. Then you fold the edges up over the Brie, brush it with an egg wash, then prick it in a few places to allow the steam to escape, and bake for about 20 minutes. Cool on a rack for the requisite 30-40 minutes, then move to a platter and serve with crackers. If you want, serve this with small plates. Lots of folks won’t want crackers with this – Tarla served it with some – but I preferred just having the Brie and the crust alone. Your choice, of course! You’ll want to eat it up right away – once you cut into it, it cools very fast and it’s not so delicious once it’s at room temp. The best thing would be to cut little wedges and serve them to people right then and there.

What’s good: how easy it is to make – as long as you have all the ingredients – puff pastry thawed, the right size 8-ounce round Brie (our Costco carries them), the dried cherries and nuts. I’m assuming you have honey and an egg for the wash. It’s a very pretty presentation. I love Brie, so it was a no-brainer that I’d like it. The honey adds a different touch. That I liked. Next time I’ll make it with hazelnuts.
What’s not: nothing really – this stuff is good, albeit high in fat & calories!

printer-friendly (Cute PDFWriter) PDF
MasterCook 5+ import file – right click to save file, run MC, then File|Import

Tweet

Here’s another of those – TRUST ME –  recipes. When I tell you these are worth making, please just do it, right? Do you like vivid orange flavors? And chocolate? This positively is a match made in heaven. And they’re super easy too.

A group of women was coming to my home to attend a cooking class, and each time we meet, the hostess (me this time) provides beverages (hot and cold) and some breakfast sorts of things (croissants maybe, fresh fruit, occasionally champagne) and a bread – perhaps banana bread or muffins. Even cookies. I had nothing particular in mind, but turned to one of my favorite little tiny cookbooks. What I’ve learned over the years is that every recipe in this book, Muffins: Sixty Sweet and Savory Recipes… From Old Favorites to New is reliable. Written by Elizabeth Alston,

Our daughter Sara, and her 15 & 7/8 year old daughter Sabrina

it’s out of print, but you can still find it in a used book store. And if you click on the link there, you’ll find some used copies for a penny (plus shipping, of course). I bought it for myself in 2003, when it was new (along with the companion book about Scones – Biscuits and Scones: 62 Recipes from Breakfast Biscuits to Homey Desserts). I also gave these to my daughter Sara, because she and her daughter love to bake. She was telling me a few weeks ago that it’s her go-to cookbook for anything close to a muffin (there are all kinds from savory to sweet, and biscuits too). What’s good about this one is that every single recipe I’ve ever tried (and Sara says the same thing) has been exceptionally good.

Looking online to see what other people thought, I found several versions of this recipe, all with a few little changes. Never did find the exact recipe, so I stuck with Alston’s original, using yogurt as the dairy (you can use buttermilk too).

You might be skeptical at the amount of orange zest in the recipe – 12 muffins require the zest from 2 oranges. My oranges were very large, so I probably had more than usual – about nearly 3 tablespoons that I got using the microplane. And it uses 3 ounces of bittersweet chocolate. I rarely use anything but the best chocolate (SharffenBerger in this case), and the bittersweet is worth seeking out. I did NOT use chocolate chips, and I’m glad I didn’t because they’re too sweet and too uniform – it’s nice to have dots of larger pieces of chocolate. You know you’re eating a really good chocolate that way.

The muffins are standard as far as mixing – cream the butter and sugar, add eggs and beat until light and fluffy. Add the yogurt,  orange juice and zest, then the dry ingredients are gently stirred in with the chocolate at the last. There are two secrets to making muffins: (1) don’t over mix the batter – just stir until you don’t see any errant streaks of flour; and (2) bake them to EXACTLY 205°. In my oven that took 18 minutes. I used my fantastic Thermapen thermometer to test them and they were 204.9° exactly. Perfection. I cooled them in the muffin tin for about 10 minutes, then carefully used a plastic knife to release them and let them cool to room temp. And I’m absolutely guilty as heck – I ate one while they were still barely warm. Oh – my – gosh.  Was it ever good. Ideally bake them within an hour of serving, when the chocolate is still almost molten, but not quite. As it was, I made them the day before and kept them in a ziploc bag overnight. Reheat them if you’re going to make them ahead – but not for long as they would dry out, I’m sure.

What’s good: oh, the orange flavor and the chocolate. As they say, those are two flavors that are marriage material. Loved the intense orange flavor – much more orange-y than usual in a baked good – but it wasn’t over the top (as in bitter). And the irregular pieces of chocolate were such a sweet surprise as you eat it. Definitely a make-again muffin.

What’s not: absolutely nothing at all.

printer-friendly (Cute PDFWriter) PDF

MasterCook 5+ import file – right click to save file, run MC, then File|Import

Tweet

A couple of weeks ago we visited a wonderful exhibit at a Mormon church near us. Every year for a few days they have crèches on display from all over the world (and some lively choirs and vocal ensembles singing in the adjoining auditorium). There must have been 100+ of the crèches. They’re displayed well, on stands, on Christmas themed tables, etc. They take all forms. This one was from Africa, as I recall, and it’s a ceramic teapot (made for the purpose, obviously) with the nativity scene inside. In the next week, each day I’m going to post a photo of one. I took jillions of photos, but the lighting wasn’t the best for iPhone photos. These you’ll see are the better ones.

Tweet

Do you ever wish when you served a simple dinner (like a piece of grilled fish, or a chicken breast) that you had something to put on it, or next to it. Something that would fancy it up a little bit and give the protein some other texture and flavor? Something that you already had on hand – not something you had to make – but could just grab from the refrigerator? This is it. It will keep for at least 6 months in the refrigerator.

Are you like me – on some nights when I make dinner, I just don’t have the energy to create some kind of sauce or relish. I don’t want to make rich, calorie and fat laden sauces all the time. I love-love the Mississippi Comeback Sauce a lot. But it’s composed of mayo – at least half of it is mayo. Not all that healthy. I also love-love the Bell Pepper Relish for Meat too. That one’s not particularly fat-driven, but it’s sweet. Not always the right thing, depending on what kind of meat you serve it with. Oh, and the Siciliana Sauce is also a good one. It’s a tomato-based sauce, also somewhat sweet. And Romesco Sauce too.  That one is served with Shrimp in the recipe I have here on my blog, but I always have leftovers and I use it on a bunch of different things. It is mostly composed of bread, peppers and almonds. I think the first time I had that it was with pork. But it would be equally good with chicken too.

What I was doing was catching up on my blog-reading – I probably subscribe via RSS to about 100 blogs. Probably too many, but fortunately they don’t all post every day. If I go a week without looking at them it can take me a couple of hours or more to go through them all. Anyway, I was reading Food52 and the story about this recipe caught my interest. Torrisi’s is a venerable restaurant in New York City. They have a sister restaurant called Parm, too. Anyway, this is a sauce adapted some from Torrisi’s owner and written up in New York Magazine. So this is their authentic sauce. In the story about it that caught my eye – they said somebody had cradled the sauce on the train for an hour or so to bring it in to the Food52 team. That got my attention.

The write-up suggested that you could throw this together from canned stuff on your pantry shelves. Well, maybe New Yorkers always stock cherry peppers. I don’t, so those had to be purchased (canned). The only problem was, the cherry peppers at our market aren’t hot – they’re peppers, in multi-colors, mostly red, but they’re called “Sweet Cherry Peppers,” although there isn’t any added sugar in it at all. Or heat. So I had to improvise a little bit. I’ll have to look at our local Italian deli and see if they have hot cherry peppers. Anyway, this contains the (hot) cherry peppers, roasted red peppers, a few fresh tomatoes, olive oil, red chili flakes, dried oregano, sugar and salt.

It’s very cinchy easy to make – throw everything in the food processor, whiz, and it’s done. Yea! Pour into a container and chill. Or not if you’re using it immediately. I think it would make a great (and easy) dip to put out with bread. Or sturdy crackers maybe. It’s more liquid-y than I had anticipated from the photo at Food52, but it doesn’t distract from the taste.

Because the cherry peppers were sweet, not hot, I added some Sriracha sauce (or you could add any kind of hot-sauce-heat, like Cholula, Tabasco or whatever). I added about 2 T. of Sriracha for the cup of Spicy Sauce. Add more if you like it hotter. Here are the possibilities for using this: on eggs (fried, scrambled, in a frittata), in sandwiches, with roast pork and potatoes, on stir-friend greens, on brisket, or stirred into soups, stews and pots of beans. I served it with some roast chicken. All of those sound good! It’s also pretty darned good straight out of the container on a spoon!

What’s good: how easy it was to make – pile everything in the food processor and whiz. Done. I’m sure this will keep for weeks – the only “fresh” thing in it was a few cherry tomatoes and those would be mostly “pickled” with all the other ingredients. It should be fine for a long time – the recipe indicates 6 months!
What’s not: it’s a thin sauce (not watery, as there isn’t any in it, but the cherry peppers are brined and did have a bit of liquid).  There’s not much of any way to avoid that. Be careful not to over-process it – you don’t want it to be a puree – it needs some substance.

printer-friendly (Cute PDFWriter) PDF
MasterCook 5+ import file – right click to save file, run MC, then File|Import

Tweet

Cutting to the chase? Make these. They’re ever-so easy. And oh, are they good!

A week or so ago a choir friend brought these little puppies to church, which we got to nibble on in between services/singing. I almost passed them by, as I try to eat just ONE glazed doughnut hole, an every week offering on the snack table. But somebody was raving about these. And they were cut into little tiny bite-sized pieces. Okay, I said to self, just one. And indeed, I did just have one – they all disappeared within about a minute as the choir members swarmed like bears to a honeypot.

Quickly I found out who made them and joined the parade asking Donnell for the recipe, which she brought to choir practice the following week. Oh joy! I’d gone online and looked up many, many other recipes for these. None had a maple drizzle on top so I couldn’t be sure it was the same thing.

The very next morning I was in the kitchen making these. My best friend Cherrie (the one who has breast cancer and just had surgery) and I usually do a bake-a-thon of Christmas cookies during the first week of December. That’s not happening this year as she doesn’t have much arm power or stamina yet. So I’ve been sharing some cookies with her as I’ve made any. During the 10 days or so after her surgery many friends signed up to deliver dinner to them, and I’m sure a cookie was in order after some of those meals. I made Cranberry Noels a couple of weeks ago. I gave her almost all of them. This week I gave her all but about 10 pieces of this. I think I’ll have to make these again. Soon. My GF cousin Gary is coming down for Christmas – he arrives in a few days – maybe I’ll make the crust layer with almond meal, which would likely work well! I’ll let you know.

The only thing that’s unusual in these is MAPLE EXTRACT. Not every grocery store has it. Fortunately I had just enough to make this batch, and have already purchased another bottle of it. I’m going to find some pure extract, rather than the imitation, which is all that’s available in grocery stores. I went online and read lots of reviews of maple extract. I’d have ordered some from amazon (since I have a prime account, so no extra shipping), but they don’t offer any extract that qualifies for prime. I’ll check out Whole Foods. They might have it. Meanwhile, I’ll make do with the imitation!

So, back to the bars themselves. First you make a crumbly pastry base (I used my stand mixer). It is pressed into the bottom of a greased 9×12 dish/ or pan. I recommend using a quarter sheet pan if you have one – it’s a little bit smaller (8 1/2 x 12 interior measure, not 9×13 as most rectangular cake pans measure). I thought the base layer was a little bit sparse – I had trouble getting every smidge of the pan bottom covered because I was using a rectangular cake pan. If you use the quarter sheet pan you may be able to press a bit of the pastry up the edges (a good thing).

While it baked I made the filling, which is not difficult. Fold the chopped walnuts in last, though. The filling is easily poured on top of the pastry crust and it’s baked for 20-30 minutes. Usually my ovens runs a bit hot, but at 20 minutes the filling wasn’t “set,” as the directions suggested. I put it back in for another 10 minutes. I think that was just a bit too long as the filling around the edges (where it came in contact with the metal pan) had turned to candy. So, with my oven anyway, probably 25 minutes is just about right. Be watchful of the batch as you bake it.

Once baked the pan needs to rest until it’s completely cool. Then you mix up a simple powdered sugar, maple extract and milk drizzle that gets dripped all over the mixture. Let that set and cut and serve. As I mentioned above, Donnell made her batch in a quarter sheet pan, which is what I will use next time. The filling resembles pecan pie filling, but with walnuts, not pecans. The recipe does indicate the cookies should be stored in the refrigerator.

What’s good: the delish maple flavor. We don’t eat much of anything that uses maple syrup, so it was a taste treat for me. It’s easy to make too.
What’s not: I can’t think of a single thing I didn’t like about these!

printer-friendly (Cute PDFWriter) PDF
MasterCook 5+ import file – right click to save file, run MC, then File|Import

Tweet

Oh, my. Can I just tell you to make this? Do you trust me? Have you learned that when I say that, it’s something that’s sensational? Worth making? Fabulous. All those things? Yes, YES!

We have a local restaurant in Tustin, where I live, called the Tustin Roadhouse. It’s a kind of a dive, but not in a bad way. Cement floors, melamine topped tables and a few benches. They serve Que – mostly. The restaurant used to have a different name (Beach Pit BBQ) but awhile ago they branched out just a little bit, provided some optional menu items and sides. We went a month ago and ordered appetizers and a side dish – corn. We had delicious – absolutely wonderful fried calamari with a fab remoulade sauce. Then they brought the corn. Oh my gosh! It was SO good. When we went back there a couple of weeks ago, all I really cared about was ordering more of that corn. I quizzed the waitress about what was on the corn, and promptly came home and made it myself.

You’ll find some other recipes online if you search for Mexican Street Corn. Some recipes suggest Parmesan. Most called for the cotija cheese. Some don’t have the cheese at all. Some used cayenne in the mayo. I like the depth of flavor from chipotle, so I used that. I made up my own recipe for it. I know it’s not corn season right now, but I did find corn at our local Trader Joe’s. It wasn’t the best tasting, but hey, it’s December as I write this, so I took what I could get! Those of you readers who live in the Southern Hemisphere – buy some corn right now and make this.

First you grill the corn, then while it’s sizzling hot you brush on a mixture of mayo, chipotle chile in adobo added in, and a tad of lime juice squeezed into the mix also. Then you roll the corn into crumbled cotija cheese. You don’t need much – maybe 2 T. per ear is sufficient. If you love the cotija, then add more. Cotija is a salty, aged cow’s milk Mexican cheese. It has the texture of feta, but it’s not like feta in taste, just the crumbly aspect of it. If you use Parmesan, be sure to grate it – don’t shred it. You don’t want big threads of cheese – you want crumbles. That’s IT. See? I said easy.

What’s good: the cheese, the flavor, the texture. You don’t use much mayo (the amount above – about 3 tablespoons was enough for 4 small ears) mixed with the chipotle and lime juice. Yum is all I can say.
What’s not: absolutely nothing. Do use corn holders in the end to hold the corn while you’re brushing on the mayo mixture – they’re really hot right off the grill.

printer-friendly (Cute PDFWriter) PDF
MasterCook 5+ import file – right click to save file, run MC, then File|Import

Tweet