Sorry this photo isn’t just a little bit better able to show you what this is – it’s hard to tell that it’s bread, chocolate, frozen raspberries, cream cheese, whipped cream on top with raspberries drizzled over. And it doesn’t tell you how good it was because you can’t quite see the layers. Well, not really layers actually. It’s one layer – you pile the bread cubes in a 9×13 pan, add the little chunks of cream cheese, sprinkle chocolate and almonds all over, then pour on a custard mixture. Your 9×13 pan will be very full (that’s okay). At this point it needs to sit for 4 hours, or overnight, before it’s baked. In other words, this is a great dessert for making the day before.

When you’re ready to bake, add the still-frozen raspberries (you don’t want to use fresh as they’d completely disintegrate in the baking) and the toasted almonds. Then it’s baked for about an hour. It’s supposed to be served warm, or even on the hot side. Meanwhile you mix up some whipped cream, flavored with almond extract, plop some of that on each serving, then spoon some defrosted raspberries on top. Done. This recipe came from a Phillis Carey cooking class some years ago. In all this time I’d never made it. Actually, I didn’t make it this time – our daughter Sara did – because I told her it was so good. She made some modifications to the recipe (low fat milk, low-fat cream cheese, dark chocolate). We all agreed the dark chocolate was too bitter/heavy for this dish. Just use regular chocolate chips. And I think if you’re going to indulge with this, you might as well go whole hog with regular milk and regular cream cheese. My recollection is that Phillis told us in the class not to make those kinds of substitutions, but my daughter wanted to make it a bit more healthful. Can’t fault her for that!

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Most likely there’s a kind of formula, in India, for making Tandoori chicken. A specific list of spices (maybe you can increase or decrease them) is involved, and yogurt. (I haven’t gone online to read a bunch of them to see, but that’s my guess.) That spicy mixture sits on the chicken for awhile (well, actually, you can make other kinds of tandoori as well – it doesn’t have to be chicken – I actually have a recipe here on my blog for tandoori cauliflower, if you’re interested – but I’m getting sidetracked). So, as I said, the spice/yogurt mixture chills for awhile on the chicken and then you’re ready to cook it. The goal is to keep as much of that yogurt spice mixture ON the chicken as it cooks. It not only flavors the meat, but also protects it from drying out or overcooking. That’s the secret, if there is one, to making tandoori. You can bake it in the oven, or you can grill it. Either way, it’s delicious, tender and moist. All because of the marinade.

So, when I was watching Aaron McCargo (he’s Big Daddy) on the Food Network make his version of Tandoori, I was intrigued. He’s a southern boy, and with that in mind, I think he embellished the types and number of spices he used. His version includes cumin, ground coriander, smoked paprika, cayenne, pepper, garlic, fresh ginger, lemon zest and juice and the yogurt. A whole treasure-trove of flavorings, for sure.

Then he took another detour and served them on top of Parmesan Cheesy Grits. Grits? Yup. Grits. The first time I made this, I did serve the grilled chicken on top of the grits. Just ‘cuz I like grits and thought it was such an interesting departure for an Indian dish. And it was fantastic on grits. But a couple of nights later I had leftovers of the chicken and not enough grits, so I made Aarti Sequiera’s Lebanese Lentils and Rice with Caramelized Onions, and served the tandoori chicken with that. It was also delicious. Over the years I’ve made tandoori chicken several times, but I couldn’t find a recipe in my file, so I guess I wasn’t particularly overwhelmed with the recipes. This one is good. Maybe not great, but good.

What I liked: the spice combo and the tender, moist chicken I ended up with. I used boneless, skinless chicken, and grilling that kind is very tricky, to keep the meat moist yet grilled through.

What I didn’t like: nothing, really. But I may still try a different recipe next time. Seems like tandoori chicken at an Indian restaurant tastes a bit better, or different. Maybe tandoori is another one of those things like seasonings in spaghetti sauce – it’s up to each cook to figure what suits her/him or the family.

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There are a couple of secret ingredients in this soup that help to make this soup an over-the-top version. First – a tiny little glug of soy sauce. Second – a little amount of dried porcini mushrooms  that are ground up to a powder. Who’d think those two things could make such a difference?

When I made this about a week ago, I was recovering from a cold, and some good, hot vegetable soup sounded so restorative to me. And I had about a quart of turkey stock in the refrigerator, leftover from Thanksgiving. It needed to be used, or else frozen. Then I read my most recent issue of Cook’s Illustrated (the Nov/Dec 2011 issue) and there was a long article about vegetable soups. I read it from beginning to end. In it, the author labored long and hard over how to enhance a vegetable soup. He added this and that. He discarded a number of sample batches. But he finally determined that adding in a hint of soy sauce just gave the soup that umami taste we’re all looking for. And the same with the porcini mushroom powder. I’ll have to remember that idea because you could easily add some of that to almost any soup.

So, for this big batch of soup that serves at least 6-8 for a dinner meal, you add just two teaspoons of soy sauce and also 2 teaspoons of porcini mushroom powder (you make this yourself in your spice grinder). That’s not much – but I assure you, it makes a difference. The recipe also has you make a little compound butter (butter, lemon zest, fresh thyme and a tiny bit of lemon juice) which you can spoon onto the top of the soup when it’s served. The butter is hard to see it in my photo at top – it’s just to left and slightly below the center of the soup bowl. And to tell you the honest truth, I couldn’t taste the butter, but there’s only 2 T. of butter used to sweat the veggies at the beginning – that’s it. A very low fat soup! I also added some shiitake mushrooms to this soup. Those weren’t in the original recipe, but I had them on hand and they needed to be used up. Other than that one thing, the recipe below is made exactly to the Cook’s Illustrated one. The soup has a lot of carbs in it – potatoes, turnips, carrots, barley (I used farro because that’s what I had on hand) and peas.

What I liked: doesn’t it always end up being about the taste? It does for me. As I write this, we enjoyed this soup just last night but this won’t post until next week sometime. But I can’t wait to have it again. Fortunately there’s a lot of it. I may freeze one bag and eat the other one sooner rather than later. I may add some green veggies to it next time (like some sugar snaps, maybe green beans just at the end). I like a veggie-laden soup and this one is more carb-laden. Serve this with some bread, or maybe a toasted cheese sandwich. Delish.

What I didn’t like:  well . . .when I make it again I’ll reduce the amount of soy sauce by just a little bit. I could taste it. It wasn’t bad, but I didn’t think I should be able to taste it! A great soup, though and worth making. It does take some time doing all the sous-chef thing with chopping, peeling, etc. Be prepared to spend at least an hour overseeing the cooking of it. If you have a kitchen helper, enlist the help to peel and chop!

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This salad was one of several at our Thanksgiving buffet dinner. Everyone liked it, as far as I know. I thought it was wonderful. It could be the main dish of a vegetarian meal. The next day several of us dipped into the leftovers and enjoyed it all over again. The watercress, however, isn’t all that nice the next day if it’s left in the salad.

The dressing is easy – apple cider vinegar, honey, oil and salt and pepper. You do need to prepare a few fresh veggies – carrots, tomatoes, green onions, and add some dried cranberries, toasted pine nuts and toasted pumpkin seeds too. The wild rice does have to be cooked (using some vegetable stock, not just water) of course. Some of the dressing is tossed with the rice and allowed to sit for an hour before you finish prepping the entire salad for serving.

The recipe is another one from the Mitsitam Café. I told you about this a few days ago when I posted the recipe for Cedar-Planked, Fire Roasted Salmon. The recipe is also in the Museum’s cookbook, The Mitsitam Cafe Cookbook: Recipes from the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian. Worth making.

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Last week our daughter-in-law, Karen, made this for dinner one night when our family was staying at our desert house. Can I just say it was absolutely delicious? And easy. Really easy. The recipe came from an unusual source. A cookbook, yes. But a very different cookbook! Recently our son and his family flew to the D.C. area to attend a wedding, and it was recommended by their host (the groom, a physician) that they should visit the (new since 2004) Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, and that they had to have a meal at the Mitsitam Café contained within the museum. That’s exactly what they did. And Karen was so impressed with the meal (the book is authored by the chef, Richard Hetzler) she bought two of their cookbooks (one for me for Christmas, she finally told me after watching me painstakingly hand-writing several recipes into a notebook). The cookbook – The Mitsitam Cafe Cookbook: Recipes from the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian is just so interesting. Lots of fascinating stories about Native American cookery, about the culinary heritage of many different American tribes. And interesting headnotes about each and every recipe. Mitsitam means “let’s eat” in the Piscataway and Delaware languages.

I’ll be sharing one other recipe from this same cookbook that Karen made for our Thanksgiving dinner (a wild rice and watercress salad). It was delicious also.

So, this salmon. First you need some cedar planks – they impart such a different flavor to salmon or any fish for that matter. Karen was supposed to soak them for 6+ hours. We didn’t have 6 hours, so they soaked for about 2 is all. And the planks were severely burned on the bottom when the 10+ minutes of cooking was over. But at least it didn’t burn through!

The berry glaze is easy – fresh blueberries, raspberries and blackberries (and huckleberries if you happen to have access to them – we didn’t – so used more blackberries). It’s simmered gently with water and sugar (we used Splenda) and set aside. Then you grind up fresh juniper berries (juniper is what makes that unique scent and taste in gin), add some salt and that’s patted/rubbed onto the salmon flesh. It’s baked on the cedar plank for about 8 minutes. You remove it, add most of the berry glaze and continue to bake for 4-8-10 minutes, depending on how thick the salmon is. Done. Serve with any remaining sauce. Easy. Delicious.

What I liked: the taste overall – the juniper berries add a unique flavor. So does the cedar plank.

What I didn’t like: you do have to find, or have on hand, some juniper berries. They’re not standard in most kitchens, I’d suppose. And the cedar planks aren’t easy to find, either. Grinding the juniper berries in a mortar and pestle was difficult and time-consuming even though these were freshly purchased berries. I dug around in my desert house kitchen and finally found a little mini-Cuisinart, which made quick work of the powder. I’d recommend that!

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Sometimes when I fly somewhere, I buy the latest Reader’s Digest. It’s small, will fit in my purse, easily fits in the seat-back pocket once I’m seated, and I can read it on board, during the times that I’m not allowed to use my Kindle. And I always find some interesting stories in it. The most recent issue I bought on our trip a few months ago had one really interesting article in it about germs. Not exactly a fun subject to read about, but I learned a thing or two. So even though you, my readers, follow my postings mostly for food and books, today I bring you grim news about germs.

According to this article, written by Chris Woolston, here are the worst culprits:

(1) Kitchen Sponges and Dishrags: those sponges we use in our kitchen sinks carry more germs than a toilet bowl. [gag] Up to 7% of sponges and dishrags harbored methicillin-resistant staph (the MRSA kind), aka the flesh eating bacteria. What to do? Sanitize your sponge in the dishwasher whenever you run it – or microwave it (wet it first) every single day. I think I read somewhere that it only takes 30-40 seconds on high to clean it well. You want it to get so hot you can’t touch it until it cools off a little. It steams up the inside of my microwave.

(2) Kitchen Sinks, Toothbrush Holders and Countertops: Make sure to clean them regularly as they are bacterial hot spots. Use a diluted bleach mixture (1 T. to a quart of water) for sinks and counters. Run the toothbrush holder through the dishwasher once or twice a WEEK (yikes), or wash it by hand in hot soapy water, then give it a once-over with a disinfecting throwaway wipe.

(3) Bathroom Faucets, TV Remotes, Refrigerator Handles and Doorknobs: Cold viruses linger as long as 24 hours on these surfaces – flu viruses even longer. Clean these frequently used surfaces.

(4) Public “Touch Spots” (think ATM keypads): British researchers discovered that same staph (MRSA) bacteria on 95% of the spots they swabbed in central London.

(5) Shopping Carts: in a recent study E. coli or similar bacteria on no more than 70% of shopping carts in 4 states. The researcher said “Packages of meat tend to leak.” Babies put their bottoms in those front baskets – right where we might put the broccoli. Their rule: if it’s something you might eat raw, don’t put it in the top part of the cart. [I’ve been using those wipes on every grocery cart since I read this, honest, I have, and today I even used it to wipe down the baby-bottom sitting area, though I didn’t put anything raw in that area.]

The bottom line: wash our hands often and well – including lots of soap. Rub and scrub for at least 20 seconds. I scrub my hands and with soap, but gosh, I sure don’t do it for 20 seconds. I’ll be better, I promise!

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A relatively easy chicken entrée that is just plain scrumptious! The Gorgonzola cheese sauce isn’t real thick, but is poured over the top of the sautéed spinach. Can be made ahead, too.

Another one of Phillis Carey’s stupendous recipes. From a class I took last month, and definitely will be something I make. It’s very attractive – shown above on a white plate with nothing but the spinach, really, to give any contrast – maybe it doesn’t give you the idea it’s delicious. Just trust me on this, it is.

The sauce is a mixture of chicken broth and cream, reduced down by half, then some Gorgonzola cheese is crumbled in. That’s all it is. The spinach is almost flash-fried (or you can do it quickly in the microwave just as easily) and set aside. It’s nothing but spinach, cooked, some garlic added. Then it’s set aside to drain.

Lastly, the chicken. It’s pounded to 1/2 inch thickness on the thicker end. It’s dredged in some seasoned flour. It’s cooked briefly in a skillet until it’s almost done. Then you prepare a casserole: add the chicken pieces, the spinach divided up amongst the chicken breasts, then the Gorgonzola sauce is added over the top. Sprinkled with some mozzarella and Parm and baked for about 12-15 minutes. That’s IT. Easy. If you really like/love spinach, make more, as there really isn’t a lot of spinach per portion. And if the top of the casserole dish isn’t quite browned enough, turn on the broiler very briefly.

What I liked: it’s easy. It’s delicious. It’s a make-ahead casserole.

What I didn’t like: well, the calorie and fat count are high, but there’s not a whole lot you can do about it unless you are willing to reduce the amount of cheese. And sauce. I don’t know much else you could do or you’d compromise the dish. Think of it as a treat for a special occasion.

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You remember, don’t you, when the first cake-mix bundt cakes were just coming out of every hostess’ kitchen? Unless you’re young and weren’t around in the mid 1970’s. At least I think that’s about when they hit the scene. These are the kinds that mixed in some liquor, or some pudding mixes, even Jell-O. They were – and are – easy to make. And they don’t really taste like cake-mix cakes when you’ve doctored them up with all the additions.

A rum version was one of my favorites. And a chocolate one. And a lemon one. But then, these cakes kind of disappeared from the cooking scene. Or at least something else became the rage instead. But I never really stopped making them. I just don’t make them very often.

In this case I was donating a cake to our church, for the Fall Festival. Mostly it’s for the kids, and they needed some cakes that would appeal to them. Some people made cupcakes, I’m sure. Those are certainly all the rage these days. So I turned to the cookbook The Cake Mix Doctor by Anne Byrn. I can’t say that I’ve made all that many cakes from the cookbook, but when I need one, I need one, and this is the book I turn to. No alcohol for this, since children would be eating it. So I chose one called an Apricot Nectar Cake. I had most of the ingredients on my pantry shelf and it whipped up easily enough.

Wanting to taste a little bit of this cake was a problem, though, since I didn’t want to remove a slice just to taste and photograph it. So, instead I poured just a little bit into a cupcake mold (see photo at right) and baked it a shorter time, of course, but treated it the same. After removing the cake (and cupcake) they were cooled slightly, then inverted, holes were poked all over the cake and an apricot nectar, powdered sugar, and lemon juice combination was oozed all over the cake, and hopefully down into the holes.

Oh indeed, this cake is really good. The apricot taste definitely comes through. You can see in the photo of the cupcake above that the apricot nectar did seep into the cake. Not a lot of it reached the bottom, actually. I think I needed to poke the holes a bit deeper. I used one of those baked-potato-nails for this. Using anything thinner just meant the glaze drizzled down the cake sides and pooled on the plate. More definitive action was needed!

What I liked: the taste; the texture; the apricot glaze was really nice.

What I didn’t like: The top part (you can see in the photo) was almost “wet.” So I definitely needed to poke down deeper, but not all the way to the bottom, or the glaze would just ooze out the bottom. But I would make this again, even with that minor issue.

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We’d been invited to our son’s home, following a 2-hour performance of our grandson’s (age 4) Taekwondo class. He received one of his belts (his second belt promotion) and he broke the board for the second time. He also did a single demo in front of the 100+ people attending – a big deal for a 4-year old. After the class we 9 members of the extended family met for a nice big dinner. Karen had made some delicious lamb shanks, with buckets of gravy/sauce it was cooked in, providing ample for dipping fresh bread into, to mop up all the juices on the plate.

For my part, I brought a salad. It contained baby arugula, Romaine lettuce, a big bunch of microgreens, some fresh corn cut off the cob, red bell pepper and radishes. One of the little ones has some life-threatening food allergies – the kind that really could kill him if he were to innocently have nuts, dairy or eggs. So whenever the family is all together everyone tries to bring things that don’t have any of those items. So, no nuts in the salad, no cheese in the salad, and no egg in the dressing.  The little one’s mother is ever-vigilant, but it’s got to be hard on all of them. He’s only a year old at the moment – it’ll be even harder as he gets older.

Anyway, I found a recipe I’d not tried before from one of my older cookbooks. One that I ordered years ago from Shepherd’s Garden Seeds, now called Renee’s Garden – the cookbook is Recipes from a Kitchen Garden. This was back when my DH and I were living in a different house and trying to grow a large veggie garden.

With this recipe, I changed the preparations slightly – I whizzed up the garlic with the other ingredients. The recipe just had you rub the salad bowl with the cut garlic clove. Phooey with that method. I like more garlic than that! Since I have some lovely Tuscan herb olive oil on my pantry shelf, I used that, plus fresh herbs that are still surviving in our kitchen garden (chives, rosemary, mint and basil).

What I liked: the clean, fresh taste of it – nothing heavy here, just straightforward flavors. With a little pinch or two of sugar (you’ll not even know it’s there, but it takes the edge off the sharp vinegar and lemon juice).

What I didn’t like: well, I didn’t make enough – I used it all up for the one salad. Darn.

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Our friend James, who used to be a professional chef, was telling me recently about his mother’s Chili Verde. I have a recipe for Crockpot Chili Verde on my blog already – also made with pork – and it actually has more ingredients in it than this one. It’s been awhile since I’d made it, so when James was describing his mother’s and how he slurped it up with some tortillas, it got my mouth to watering. A few days later James handed me his mom’s recipe and I set out to make this version.

Chili verde (green chili) is a moderately to extremely spicy Mexican and Mexican-American stew or sauce usually made from chunks of pork that have been slow-cooked in chicken broth, garlic, tomatillos, and roasted green chiles. Tomatoes are rarely used. The spiciness of the chili is adjusted with poblano, jalapeño, serrano, and occasionally habanero peppers. . .  this came from Wikipedia.

And yes, that describes it perfectly! Chunks of pork (shoulder or stew meat) that’s cooked with some broth, onions, garlic, cumin. After browning the meat well (which will give it plenty of flavor) you add in all those other ingredients and simmer for half an hour. Then you add in some poblano chiles, a jalapeno or two, a yellow bell pepper (gives it nice color) and a whizzed up mixture of fresh tomatillos and cilantro. That simmers for 30-45 minutes and it’s done. Since I always think stews and soup mixtures taste much better the next day, I made it a couple of days ahead, actually, through the first simmering instructions. Then I added the fresh chiles, tomatillos and cilantro and finished it off.

I had on hand some really good tortilla chips, so they were crushed in my hands and sprinkled on top, along with some shredded Jack cheese and a little sprinkling of cilantro. And I served it with a buttered flour tortilla on the side. Delicious. The only change I made to the recipe was using pork broth (I have one of Penzey’s jars of pork soup base) but chicken broth is what’s in the original recipe. Don’t overcook the pork – it will get dry and stringy. Total cooking time is about an hour or so. After the stew was cooked, I cut the pork chunks into smaller bite-sized pieces, and removed the last traces of fat.

What I liked: the rich flavor – much of it from browning the meat very well – that fond in the pan provides so much good taste. It was easy to make too. Great as a leftover meal as well.

What I didn’t like: really nothing. Know that the broth is just that – broth – it isn’t a thick soup, although the tomatillos and cilantro add some good texture to it. That’s why I added the crushed tortilla chips to the soup – they give it texture as well.

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