Love those haricot verts. One of my favorite vegetables.

A post from Carolyn. A few  years ago I was enjoying a dinner out with friends, and the waiter came to our table to tell us about the specials. He listed off several, then got to the last one and said the entree was served with harr-eh-cot-vertz. It was like scratching your fingernail on a blackboard. Oof. I quickly told him how to pronounce it – hair-eh-co-vehr. I don’t think he believed me because he gave me a rather blank look. I said, “next time you’re in the kitchen, go ask the chef.” He did, and came back later to say yes, I was correct. He asked me again how to say it and he painstakingly wrote it down on his little waiter notebook. Why exactly we don’t called them “baby green beans” I don’t know. For a long time (years ago) these beans were certainly considered “gourmet,” not ordinary, and were hard to find. I suppose it’s like a lot of French culinary words that have become part of our English speaking – like Bouillabaisse, or fondue, baba au rum, and others. How about boeuf bourgignon. There is no English translation of bourgignon. Hence, haricot verts, friends! I’m not a French speaker, but any good home cook will learn some French as they learn to cook and bake!

Just in case you don’t see them regularly in your market, they’re really just young green beans, plucked before they get big or woody or tough. Trader Joe’s sells them for a very good price in a little 12 ounce package. They’re all cleaned and trimmed. I used 3 packages for this salad/side dish.

The recipe came from David Tanis, the acclaimed chef and author. He worked at Chez Panisse for awhile, and currently writes a weekly column for the New York Times. This recipe came from an article in Food & Wine magazine a few years back.

The green beans are cooked just until bite-tender and cooled. The original recipe had you prepare dried white or cannellini beans, but I’m too lazy – I buy canned. But since there were seasonings in the dried beans as they cooked (onion, bay leaf and thyme) I decided to add onion powder, powdered bay leaf and dried thyme to the salad dressing instead. It was an easy substitution. I made the salad dressing the day before and let it sit out on my kitchen counter overnight, so the flavors would blend. The cannellini beans were drained and rinsed, then I combined just a bit of the dressing in with the beans and they sat in the frig overnight. When I was ready to serve, I scooped the beans down the center of the platter, then the haricot verts around the outside, sort of haphazardly, then drizzled the dressing over everything, using my hands a little bit to distribute the dressing on the beans. If you want to toss the dressing thoroughly with the green beans, do it separately then put them on the platter. I garnished the platter with some halved cherry tomatoes (mostly for color) and a bunch of chopped Italian parsley.

Everything for this was prepped the day before – in this case I was taking it to someone else’s home – so I just put everything into a big tote bag (separately) and composed the salad at serving time.

What’s GOOD: a lovely, different side veg or salad, however you want to think of it. The dressing was really nice. I’d definitely make this again, if only for the color/photo factor. I had several nice comments about the salad when it was served. Certainly there are different textures here – the soft cannellini beans and the just crisp-tender green beans. And the shallot vinaigrette was really delicious.

What’s NOT: only that you need to start a bit ahead, although you certainly could make this and serve it immediately. I wanted the salad dressing to meld a bit; that’s all.

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This has “comfort food” written all over it. First bite to the last.

A post from Carolyn. It’s no secret that I love shepherd’s pie. And traditionally, it’s made with ground lamb. If you make it with beef, it’s considered cottage pie. This version has all the ingredients, but made into a soup instead. I’m not sure when I began making shepherd’s pie – decades ago – maybe I had it on my very first trip to Britain in about 1978. I’ve always made it with beef. Maybe we Americans have adopted the title, but without keeping to the British tradition of lamb. I like it with either. And originally, the “pie” was made with tiny, minced up pieces of leftover roast, not the ground meat we buy at the grocery store. I started with a recipe I found online, but then augmented it with more flavor (mushrooms, celery).

Because I try to limit carbs, I made this with less potatoes. To explain . . . this soup has two quantities of potatoes in it: (1 part) cooked separately, made into mashed potatoes (or use some leftover you have) and added to the finished soup to give it a thick texture; and (2nd part) cubed potatoes added in at the end of cooking and cooked in the soup just until done. You can see a cube right on that spoon in the photograph. Originally this recipe called for a total of 3 pounds of potatoes. I used about 1 1/2 pounds total with half in the mashed potato part and half in the soup. You can change this to suit your wants or your family’s.

Important flavors in this soup: Worcestershire sauce, tomato paste and mushrooms. All umami flavors. Actually, because I didn’t want to have beef, I used Impossible Burger meat in mine. Because it’s mixed into a soup, truly you’d never know the difference. And if you want to eliminate the meat altogether, you’ll have a delicious vegetarian soup. Just make sure the broth you add has lots of flavor.

What’s GOOD: altogether comfort food. Good stick-to-the-ribs winter meal. Serve with some crackers or toasted bread and you have a full meal. This is going onto my favorites list as I’ll be making it again soon.

What’s NOT: nothing at all. This is a keeper.

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Oh so delicious. Served warm – it could be an entree, or a pasta side salad.

A post from Carolyn. Looking at this recipe, I might not have given it much attention. Kind of regular-type ingredients (pasta, sausage, broccolini, tomatoes, cheese). Not exactly ho-hum, but when you put them all together, it’s quite a tasty dish. This came from the December cooking class with Phillis Carey. She’s a Southern Italian (actual Sicilian) and she said this recipe comes from Puglia (pronounced poo-lee-ah). For me, the Italian sausage makes it a stand-out, but the creamy addition of ricotta cheese on top gave it a silky finish too. The grape tomatoes are roasted for 20-25 minutes until they’re just at that peak of plumpness and about to fall apart. Do save a little bit of the pasta water as you’ll want to add some of it at the very end to give the pasta a bit more smoothness.

If you have all the ingredients, you could probably make this in less than 30 minutes, start to finish.

What’s GOOD: the combo is really delicious and filling. For me it’s the Italian sausage that gives it a wonderful taste. The tomatoes add umami flavor too, and you get in some veggies with the broccolini. Altogether wonderful.

What’s NOT: nothing at all – easy to make.

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What a nice dish this was for a leisurely brunch entree. And it’s very easy to make, besides!

A post from Carolyn. Over the Christmas holidays I entertained just once, a group of girlfriends I’ve known for decades. Every December we try to get together to celebrate Christmas and get caught  up on our lives. My friends brought other food to round out the brunch, so this was the only main thing I had to do. I also made some spiced fruit, a recipe I’ve made before, Spiced Peaches which went well with the little croissant sandwiches.

First you need mini-croissants. Some grocery stores carry them; others do not, but I had no difficulty finding them. I purchased some good Boar’s Head smoked ham, had the butcher slice it thinly, though not like those thin see-through shavings called sandwich slices. I cut the ham to approximately fit the shape of the croissant. I also had good imported Swiss cheese, also cut accordingly. I added a nice slice of tomato to these (not in the original recipe). Then you mix up the eggs and heavy cream, with an addition of mustard. The recipe called for Dijon (which I had), but because it was the holidays, I used Brennan’s cranberry mustard instead. I couldn’t really taste the mustard, but perhaps that was the point. It added flavor somehow but not noticeably!

This casserole needs to be assembled the night before, so you pour the custardy mixture over the sandwiches, cover with plastic wrap and let it sit. In the morning I used a big spoon to scoop  up some of the custard and drizzled it over the top of each of the croissants. Ideally, use a casserole dish that is JUST big enough to fit the number of croissants  you’re using. Mine was a little too big. It bakes for 40-45 minutes (do watch that the croissants don’t burn like mine almost did) and serve. The recipe has you put foil over the top during the last 15 minutes of baking (I did, and glad I did so!).

Be prepared to serve it immediately as the dish cools off quickly since it’s not a solid mass.

What’s GOOD: it was easy to make – very easy. Liked that I could make it the night before and nothing more to do except put it in the oven the next morning. This would be a solid breakfast entree for men/boys (although they’d probably eat two apiece) since it’s hearty.

What’s NOT: not a thing. Easy. Delicious.

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Forgot to take a picture once it was out of the oven . . . sorry about that. On top is a nice flavorful layer of Gruyere cheese and buttered bread crumbs.

A post from Carolyn. If any of you are “of a certain age,” you may remember that serving authentic beef stroganoff was a frequent entertaining entree way back in the 60s and 70s. It required copious amounts of sour cream and of course, some kind of tender beef. Whatever type I bought wasn’t ever tender enough. I think tenderloin is the authentic beef recommended – that was way out of my price range, so I used some other substitute (and probably overcooked it, or it was a type that might never get tender) so I wasn’t necessarily thrilled with the results. My other go-to company meal was turkey a la king, served in puff pastry cups – a more inexpensive entree served elegantly in those little buttery vessels. Vaguely I remember when someone decided to make stroganoff with ground beef, but it was considered to be a cheap substitute (and oh, hand up to forehead – gasp – certainly not worthy of a company meal). Over the ensuing years I know I’d made that substitute casserole many times, but it never came into regular rotation. Probably because it was thick, gloopy (is that a word?) and over-the-top too rich.

How times have changed. When I watched Rachael Ray make this on her show, I was intrigued. Why? Because she used a max of 1/2 cup of sour cream (not 1 – 2+ cups as I’d used in my other recipes), it didn’t contain any canned soup (cream of mushroom), and it used sherry wine plus a moderate amount of Worcestershire sauce. Plus it was a much dry-er casserole – no gluey or thick mushy type serving.

Did you know that Worcestershire is an umami flavor? Yup. You can add a little bit to dishes and you’ll not know it’s there, but it adds nice flavor. Mushrooms also have umami, and there are plenty of them in this recipe too. Rachael called for rye or pumpernickel bread crumbs . . . I didn’t have those and wasn’t about to buy a loaf of that bread to garner a cup of breadcrumbs, so I used panko, because that’s what I had on hand. Others who have made this recipe and posted it online mention those rye or pumpernickel bread crumbs as being a real game-changer. I like it just fine with panko crumbs, but agree, the other types might make this casserole even better. The addition of Gruyere cheese also added to the high-flavor profile here.  I buy Costco ground beef – I think it has more flavor than many others, like my local grocery store variety. I keep those Costco cubes in my freezer all the time (they’re 1 1/2 pounds, just what’s called for in this recipe).

If you make this and have leftovers, heat them in servings in the microwave, maybe with a sprinkling of water on the bottom. As I mentioned, this makes a kind of “dry” casserole. I’d reheat them in a bowl rather than a flat plate.

What’s GOOD: really delicious comfort-food casserole. Liked the depth of flavor in this (from the mushrooms, Worcestershire, sherry wine, Gruyere) and will definitely make this again. It should freeze well – I made two small casseroles and one large one. The smaller ones I froze, so I’ll enjoy them in coming months.

What’s NOT: only that it takes about an hour to prepare (plus baking time), with a moderate amount of cutting and chopping; nothing is difficult. You’ll find that the mixture seems quite dry, but it works out fine.

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What a nice, refreshing salad – perfect for the holidays, too.

A post from Carolyn. In early December I attended my first in-person cooking class with Phillis Carey, my favorite cooking instructor. All through Covid she taught via zoom, and if I couldn’t taste the food, why bother, was my motto? After three years, it was so fun to see her (and her cooking friend Diane Phillips) and to eat a treasure-trove of new things. This was one of the recipes I really liked.

Phillis’s heritage is Sicilian, so her recipes were more Southern Italian. This salad could be made ahead up to the point of tossing it. Prep the fennel ahead and the fresh oranges (let the fennel marinate in the orange/juice to keep it from turning brown). Have the arugula part all ready to dress, and toss at the last minute.

The dressing is just slightly different – lemon juice and white wine vinegar, a tetch of honey, and EVOO. Easy to make ahead too. You may also add olives – Phillis added Kalamata, but she also suggested Castelvetrano (I’d prefer those). Your choice, however. The olives add some color to the salad in addition to a punch of flavor. Castelvetrano olives are a ripe olive, very mild, not acidic/bitter like Kalamata. Arugula is everywhere now in the grocery stores, so that wouldn’t be hard to find. You could use baby spinach, I suppose, but it wouldn’t be authentic. I may make this salad for Christmas or New Year’s Eve. One or the other. If you can find blood oranges, that would make an ever prettier platter of salad. Sometimes they’re available around the holidays. I haven’t seen them lately.

You can plate individually, or make a big platter of it with the oranges and olives and fennel piled on top of the arugula, kind of centered. If I do that for the holidays I’ll take a picture of it!!

What’s GOOD: love the acid (lemon juice/vinegar and olives) vs. sweet (honey, oranges). It’s a simple dressing, but perfect for arugula. What a pretty salad it makes. And nice that it can be made ahead up to the point of dressing it. A winner.

What’s NOT: nothing, really – easy to do.

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Certainly I’d never heard of chocolate salami before, but was intrigued when I read the story about them. Italians claim the origin of the recipe, so do Germans, but so do Russians. Mine weren’t as round as the pictures online, but hey, made no difference to the taste!

A post from Carolyn. I think I mentioned recently that I decided to subscribe to the New York Times Food Section. It’s not a cheap purchase, but they offered it for half price ($20/year). If you’re interested, it’s still on offer at that price. I have nowhere near discovered all there is to know about their recipe archives, but this cookie recipe popped up and it’s just so different I had to try it.

So I read, back during the Soviet Russia era, some foodstuffs were hard to come by like cookies and cocoa powder. An ingenious cook combined shortbread cookies and cocoa along with chocolate (available) and hazelnuts (available) to spread the wealth, so to speak. Both the cocoa powder and the cookies then were enjoyed for a longer period of time. Although I have to say, eating one of these is nearly impossible.

A package of hazelnuts was staring at me, so I toasted them up first (about 5-7 minutes in my toaster oven at 375). Then I opened the package of Walker’s shortbread and used my meat pounder (flat) to kind-of mash up the cookies. In the photo above you can see toasted hazelnuts and pieces/crumbs of the cookies. The recipe suggested you sieve the cookies because you don’t want many crumbs. I didn’t wish to waste the crumbs, so I used them anyway. Just make sure you leave some little chunks – more chunks than crumbs if you can do it (and no, it’s not easy to do that).

Meanwhile you melt butter, sweetened condensed milk and bittersweet chocolate (I used Ghiradelli, bar type) and unsweetened cocoa powder. Once melted, it’s poured into the cookies and nuts mixture and after it cools a bit. Then you roll it into logs, trying to get them into a rounded shape, then seal up in waxed paper and foil for a longer chill.

My salami were not very round, so a day later I let the logs warm for about 45 minutes at room temperature and then rolled them on my countertop until they formed a more rounded shape. But, as you can see, I didn’t succeed very well with that! You sprinkle the logs with powdered sugar when you’re ready to serve them, then slice. I sliced mine thinner than the 1/4″ recommended. If you use a very slim knife you can do it. Don’t lay the slices in the sugar, however, as that messes up the visual of “salami.”

Oh my goodness, are these ever good. I suppose you could say they’re a variation of fudge, but with the addition of hazelnuts and cookie bits, they’re really not fudge.

What’s GOOD: well, I’m going to be adding this recipe to my regular Christmas cookie rotation. Or maybe not rotation – it’ll be a regular every year here on out. I liked that they were easy – EASY – to make. They’re a real keeper in my book. And, I’ll be adding this recipe to my favorites. Does that tell you how much I liked them?

What’s NOT: nothing whatsoever, other than you can’t eat these immediately – requires overnight or several hours of chilling to make the logs firm enough to slice.

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Another iteration of a different kind of cranberry sauce.

A post from Carolyn. For Thanksgiving I was invited to go to a distant relative’s home, so this is what I made – this sauce plus my regular old-faithful raw cranberry relish I make every year. This new one came from Cook’s Illustrated, from 1999, my records tell me. It was very simple to make – just water, sugar, some grated fresh ginger, a dash of ground cinnamon (which you can taste in the finished sauce, although it’s elusive, but you know something, something is different about it), salt, cranberries and fresh pears. That’s it.

Preparing it ahead a day or two made it easy; all I had to do was package it up and take it on the drive and pour it out into a pretty dish when I got there. The raw relish I made didn’t last all that long after making it (probably because I used half fake sugar, so it didn’t have as much sugar/preservative to keep it from spoiling). As I write this, it’s been made for over 2 weeks, this sauce, and it’s still delicious. I’ve had it spooned over my morning yogurt, and served along with some roasted chicken I had.

What’s GOOD: easy sauce to make – very delicious. I really, really liked it. It may become a regular that I make every Thanksgiving!

What’s NOT: not a thing. Of course, we can’t make this during the summer unless we’ve frozen a bag of cranberries over the holiday time when they’re available!

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This is such an unusual bread . . . unless you come from Naples, where you see it all the time, I suppose. So delicious. Easy. Those little holes you see are where there were little chunks of Provolone cheese that oozed into the little crevices of the baking bread.

A post from Carolyn. At that cooking class I went to earlier in the month, Phillis Carey prepared this quick bread. I’d never had it before, so I went online to read about it. A common bread in Naples, Italy, Babà Rustico (or Rustica) is usually made with yeast and usually it’s made in a tube or ring mold, even a fluted one you’d use for a cake. And, in fact, I found a recipe online that uses yeast but cooks it like a quick bread (no rising required, in other words). I may have to try that version.  But this quick-bread version is just marvelous. It’s so tender (probably from the buttermilk in the batter) and moist (from the eggs and cheeses). It’s a very moist bread, in other words.

You mix up the dry, then stir in add-ins (salami, provolone and parsley). The wet ingredients (eggs, buttermilk, olive oil) are mixed into the dry – remember, with a quick bread you don’t want to over-mix it, just until combined. The batter is quite thick. The Parm gets sprinkled all over the top of the bread, then it bakes for 45-55 minutes (depending on the exact size of your pan). Once out of the oven you drizzle a little bit of EVOO over the top of the bread and let it soak in.

What I will tell you is that the leftover pieces of this make fantastic toast. I toasted it in my countertop oven and slathered just a little bit of butter on it. Oh my. Divine. Do serve it warm if you can. It freezes well too. You can bake it ahead several days (store, wrapped, in the frig).

What’s GOOD: the lovely moist, cheesy texture (like brioche) of this bread is fabulous. You’re gonna love it.

What’s NOT: nothing really except that you may not have salami and Provolone on hand.

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Yummy. Comfort food at its best.

A post from Carolyn. Once in awhile I get a craving for risotto. Usually after I’ve watched someone else make it on a TV program, I’ve seen it on a menu, or someone mentions it in passing. I used to make it much more regularly, but since it’s a very simple carb, I try not to. Yet a craving sometimes needs to be answered. My cousin Gary was visiting and he doesn’t mind having meatless meals. As it happened, I had some chicken sausages that I cooked separately, for some added protein.

I have a relatively “old” Breville multi-cooker – it’s a similar shape to an Instant Pot (smaller in all dimensions). It’s not an Instant Pot (though I have one of those also) – this was before IP came into being and has now taken over pressure cooking in general. This old Breville cooker (that doesn’t pressure cook) has a risotto setting. FYI: you can’t buy these old Breville models anymore. Not sure if anyone manufactures a device that “makes” risotto like it does. This little model does have a saute function, but I was in a relative hurry, so I cooked the shallots and mushrooms in another skillet and added them to the cooker. I’ve revised the recipe with directions for using a regular pan on the range, since I doubt many people have this old Breville thing.

Risotto requires a lot of stirring, and particularly at the end of the cooking time as it could burn easily if you’re not watching it. Have the rest of your meal all ready at this point so you can concentrate on the risotto.

One of the secrets to risotto is adding a little bit of white wine at the very beginning – with the rice – and allowing all the wine to be absorbed by the raw rice. Then you begin adding broth about 1/2 cup at a time and the mushroom concentrate. (A note about that – if you don’t have mushroom base, it’s now available from Better Than Bouillon, and I hear it’s really delicious.) Continue cooking, adding broth, until the rice is done, kind of mildly firm to the tooth, but still just barely cooked through. Then you add a dollop of sherry wine and 1/2 cup of heavy cream. I let it continue to warm through, and maybe add some water if it’s too thick, or to cook a minute or two more if it’s too thin. Scoop into heated bowls and garnish with black pepper and some grated Parm.

What’s GOOD: oh my, yes, I do love risotto. If you like mushrooms, you’ll love the intense flavor in this. Do click on that amazon link above for the mushroom concentrate – it makes a difference. The risotto was so satisfying – comfort food for sure. Leftovers were mixed with a tiny bit of water and served a few days later. Altogether wonderful.

What’s NOT: only the time of cooking risotto, with stirring and stirring.

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