If you’re my age (I hit a milestone birthday recently and am now officially feeling “old”), then you’ll remember back in the 50’s ice box cakes were all the rage. They were made with the new (then) box cake mixes and new (then) boxed pudding mixes or Jell-O and Cool-Whip. At the time, everyone, just about, was making them. Originally they were somewhat plain, but as months went by some innovative cooks came up with different combinations, but still using all of those boxed products. I have an old community cookbook from the early 60’s, and it’s got a couple dozen variations on the box-mix-box-pudding or Jell-O ice box cake. The one I remember most was one with pineapple in the topping. My mother must have made it because I was mostly too young to do much cooking.

Back then these cakes were known for being easy. And moist. And transportable – you can take them along to a barbecue, the church social, or a picnic. This recipe you’re seeing today, though, is NOT a typical 1950-era ice box cake. I read about it at The Weekly Dish back in 2008, and she credits the recipe to April Fulton, on a 2007 episode of NPR’s Kitchen Window. If you go read the Kitchen Window blog piece you’ll be pulled into her story about inheriting her grandmother’s 3×5 recipe box and the nostalgia that goes along with that. I could identify. Totally.

What’s different about this ice box cake? Several things: (1) the white cake is a homemade one; (2) instead of pudding or Jell-O, she uses freshly made lemon curd, although this version is a looser lemon curd than usual – so it will seep down into the holes you poke all over the cake; and (3) the frosting, instead of Cool-Whip, is a mixture of mascarpone cheese and whipped cream. And if that wasn’t enough, I’ll certainly tell you that it takes a whole lot more time to make than the box mix versions! I was lucky, though, our daughter Sara and our granddaughter Sabrina (and grandson John) all contributed their labors to make this cake. I was swamped with things to do for our birthday brunch, and they were happy to make it.

The cake is sturdy. Maybe sturdier than I’d hoped – I thought it was going to be more like a sponge cake (in fact, if or when I ever make this again, I think I’ll search out a similar batter-size sponge cake recipe). It’s just a plain white cake. Maybe it’s white wedding cake type, to stand up to a goopy filling (the lemon curd) and a frosting. There’s nothing wrong with the cake, it’s just more dense than I’d hoped. The lemon curd, using some of the very last of my 2011 Meyer lemon crop, was easy enough, although Sara and I both thought the curd didn’t thicken as much as we expected. It wasn’t creamy colored, either, but clear. Although it did meet the test of coating the back of a spoon, so we finally decided it must be “done.” Lemon curd always thickens some once its chilled, but it never did get creamy colored. We thought that was odd.

The frosting is easy enough to make (mascarpone and whipping cream with more lemon juice) and it’s spread over the top. It doesn’t have much quantity to it, but it does give it a little tart topping to just add to the sweet lemon curd part. The original recipe suggested you wouldn’t use all of the lemon curd, but we did. In fact the holes we made (probably about 20) weren’t filled up – that’s what I expected. A few were, but most were not. Some of the lemon curd oozed down the sides – which was okay since that gave each cut slice with an outside edge a bit of the extra tart lemon curd.

What I liked: oh, the lemony, tart flavor – from the lemon curd. And the frosting for sure.

What I didn’t like: well, the cake part wasn’t memorable. Maybe I should have uses a boxed white cake after all. Not exactly what April Fulton had in mind, trying to update an old boxed-mixture that contained all kinds of food additives, but am sure the cake would be lighter, fluffier. I just found the cake to be too dense.

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I know, I know, what’s so special about a grilled chicken salad! Well, let’s just say it’s all about the dressing in this recipe. If you don’t care about the salad part, that’s fine, but you do need to try the dressing on a salad of your choice.

Wanting a cold salad for dinner in the summer is certainly standard fare around here. I dug out this recipe that I think came from a cooking class I went to in the mid-80’s. It’s that old. And the recipe for an artistic salad such as pictured above, was on the cutting edge at the time! My notes say this recipe came from Jean Francois Meteigner, at Cicada (an L.A. restaurant). At the time the restaurant was on Melrose. There is still a Cicada, but it’s in downtown L.A. and somebody else is the chef. Meteigner has moved on to another restaurant in Santa Monica. In any case, this is his recipe and it’s a good one.

I made the dressing an hour ahead and let it sit out at room temp so the garlic would infuse a bit more. Afterwards I refrigerated what was left and used it up within a few days. As for the salad, it’s a mixture of baby spinach, arugula and mixed salad greens. Then you add some cucumber, fennel, fresh corn cut off the cob (or use frozen if that’s all that’s available), toss the salad with the dressing, then add the decorative touches – fresh wedges of tomato, avocado, green onions and artichoke hearts, if you’d like. When I served this as a main dish salad I added the chicken. The next day I served a lovely green salad  (pictured above) with some crumbled blue cheese, some toasted pecans, and the dressing.

So, first is the salad dressing. As you can see from the ingredient list, it has some sweetness to it. Not too much, but enough that you know it’s sweet. The original recipe called for honey – I used agave nectar instead. Otherwise, I stuck to the recipe as written. It’s delicious. Several people asked me about it- they couldn’t tell what was in it – the sherry vinegar adds a different taste. And the lemon juice gives it a nice tartness, although the agave certainly balances it. Worth making.

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Then, if you’d like to make the chicken salad part, with all the delicious fresh veggies that go along with it, here’s that part.

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This recipe has been residing in my to-try file for a long time. Years, I think. And perhaps I read about them on somebody else’s blog, but my copied recipe doesn’t indicate. So, I went online to make sure this was still a viable recipe as printed. I’m trying to remember to do that as often as possible – especially for recipes I know are online. At Paula’s website the recipe was the same, but nobody seemed to have any beef with the baking powder.

On the Food Network site, though, there was a lot of discussion about these biscuits. When Paula first made them on air she used self-rising flour. In the translation from the demo on the show and the recipe printed online the producers or recipe writers went from self-rising flour to regular flour with baking powder and salt added. That’s when the dissention ensued. Lots of folks were successful making these. Other people weren’t. Some were ticked off that the recipe was changed. Some said the 4 tablespoons (yes, tablespoons, not teaspoons) of baking powder had to be wrong. The recipe (now, at least) says 4 teaspoons. Some complained they couldn’t taste the sweet potatoes (I couldn’t). Others complained the biscuits didn’t rise (mine did). Others thought they were hockey pucks (nope, not mine). Numerous cooks thought even 4 tsp of baking powder was too much. They thought it was a misprint. After reading every single comment online I went with the existing recipe, as written, and had not a single problem with it.

However, I did do a few things – I briefly heated the sweet potato in the microwave to bring it to room temp or maybe a bit warmer. I did sift the baking powder and salt in with the flour to make sure it was mixed properly. I also mixed the dough very gently. VERY gently. Biscuit dough doesn’t like to be “handled.” It wants the fat (butter, oil, whipping cream) to be added and just mixed in as little as possible. The more of that fat that stays intact, the more flaky the dough will be.

Actually I forgot to add the rosemary in the dough, so at the end I sprinkled it liberally all over the top of them, which worked out just fine. We ate them when they were just barely cooled to room temp, with a little bit of butter. We thought they were delicious. Tender and flaky. And truly, I’d never have known there was sweet potato in them. They don’t rise a lot, but they did rise some. I used the light colored – golden – yam or sweet potato, not the orange one. If I’d used the orange type the biscuits would have been much darker colored.

What I liked: they were easy to make; tender and flaky; a good use of some leftover sweet potato if you had some, especially right after Thanksgiving or Christmas. Do note that this is not a high-fat biscuit – only 5 grams per biscuit. Not like a lot of Paula’s recipes . . .

What I didn’t like: not a thing; enjoyed them very much.

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Usually, when we have a gathering of friends at our house, I research new recipes to try. I’m fairly fearless about that, actually. There might be a few things I wouldn’t tackle without trying it first, but normally I’m game to try new combinations and new recipes anytime! But this particular time I didn’t. I used tried-and-true recipes with just one exception, the dessert. So, what did I make for this dinner? Thought you’d never ask . . .

First, I made an old standby, Layered Hummus and Eggplant, tossed with a balsamic vinaigrette. I sent my DH out that afternoon on a mission to go buy some sangak bread. I didn’t take another photo of the sangak – it’s an Iranian thin, stretchy and chewy yeast bread, kind of like super-thin pita but it comes out of the oven about 3 feet long, hot, steamy and I couldn’t believe it, Dave didn’t even snack on it on the way home. It made a great vehicle for digging into this appetizer.

Then, we had pork chops. Oh my goodness, did we have pork chops. I’d ordered them from a local meat market, and I KNOW I told them 1 1/4” thick. When I opened the package two days later just before our meal, I discovered they were cut 2” thick. Oh my goodness! Each single pork chop was about a pound (with bones). What to do? I didn’t think it would be very nice to cut the pork off the bones to have smaller pieces. I couldn’t cut them in half because I don’t have a saw capable of that. I just had to go with it – I informed Dave that these were going to need longer on the grill. I seasoned them with smoked paprika, salt, pepper and a bit of grapeseed oil patted on last, according to the recipe from Aaron McCargo on the Food Network. When my friend Darci had told me about the recipe, she’d made it with pork chops. I’d made it with some leftover pork roast that I cut thick, sort of like pork chops.

The chops are reddish from the smoked paprika that I rubbed on both sides. Makes the grilled sides look gosh-darned purrrty! And tasty.

Making the lemon shallot chutney was easy. I doubled the recipe this time and added segments from one orange in addition to the lemons (just because I had an orange that needed using). When I’d gone out to the garden to clip the fresh tarragon and chives, I spotted the lavender blooms and decided to throw in a few of those too. Why not, I said?

The chutney/relish was served separately so people could scoop as much as they wanted onto the pork chops. There was just a smidgen left.

‘Tis the season for tomatoes, so I decided to serve the marinated tomatoes that I’ve not made even once so far this summer. DH bought some beautiful heirlooms, and I had a big chunk of Italian parsley, and the vinaigrette that goes over it is easy to put together.

We had both yellow and red tomatoes. Ample salt and pepper goes all over it, the parsley, then the vinaigrette is drizzled over it. You marinate it for an hour or two, then let it sit out at room temp for an hour before serving.

A friend gave me a butternut squash she’d grown in her garden. What fun! I’d planned on making my roasted sweet potato black bean salad with jalapeno dressing, that’s been a favorite for several years. So I thought, why not use the butternut squash instead of the sweet potato. I don’t know that it was quite as good (it wasn’t as sweet, I’ll say that), but it was good.

I used the same technique as the original salad, roasting the butternut squash in the oven along with the red onion. Then it was tossed with the drained and rinsed black beans and lastly, the lime juice jalapeno vinaigrette.

The dessert I made, a sticky chocolate sponge pudding will be “up” on my blog sometime soon. If you simply cannot wait, here’s the pdf for it.

Was it good? Oh my goodness, yes. I’d make it again any day. And in fact, I tried this recipe a few days before, gave away most of it, then made it again for this dinner party.

The full story/recipe won’t show up here on my blog until October. I’m way ahead on stories for my blog, so you’ll just have to be patient.

Imagine my surprise a few months ago, at a cooking class with Phillis Carey, when she looked over at me and said, “this is your salad dressing, Carolyn.” Wow, really? Phillis came up with the salad components, but she used my Creamy Blue Cheese Garlic Dressing. It’s one I’ve been making for years (it’s probably my favorite salad dressing), but just recently put up on my blog, purely an oversight that it hadn’t been “up” on my blog before. It’s one that isn’t overwhelming with the blue cheese. It’s more like a creamy blue cheese vinaigrette, really. You can see from the photo above – it’s not a gloopy sour cream based dressing as there isn’t any sour cream or mayo or anything “creamy” in it except 2 ounces of blue cheese – so all you see is oil and lime juice on the lettuce. It has a bunch of other stuff in it too, but it’s a simple dressing.

Anyway, I was quite thrilled. Thanks, Phillis! Now on to the salad. Phillis has you season a nice, big sirloin steak with a Cajun/Creole seasoning mix. If you don’t have a jar of something on hand, click over to this site for a recipe for a Cajun (spicy hot mixture) to make your own. In my recent reading of Mary’s site, Deep South Dish, she uses a seasoning mix she buys, called Slap Ya Mama. Our local stores here in Southern California usually carry some of Emeril’s jars, but not much else. I may have to order some of this mixture just for fun. As with any kind of spice mixture, you know, don’t you, that once you mix up a variety of spices they tend to become one and they lose their pungency within a few months. Five different spices kept separate will keep fresh for at least a year (oh, I keep mine far longer than that) but once combined give it just a month or two at most. Keep that in mind.

Several years ago I made up a batch of the the spice mix I use for my grilled Corn with 10-Spice Rub. I thought I was so clever – I made a really huge batch just at the beginning of corn season and put it in a small pint sized plastic bag and set it on a shelf in my walk-in pantry. Mistake #1 was putting it in a plastic bag – should have been sealed in a tight lidded jar. Anyway, I used some of it a week or two later. And again. Then it sat on the shelf for about 3-4 weeks. This time I walked 15 feet to my kitchen island and realized a steady stream of the spices were in a trail on my hardwood floor. Oh my. As I held the bag in my hand, it was moving. Eek! Yikes. The bag was just crawling with critters. This was back when I had an infestation of different kinds of critters in my pantry – not only weevils, but another kind of tiny speck of black bugs that ate my chocolate. If you’ve been reading my blog for awhile you read all about it. I had to throw out many, many pounds of food (pasta, flours, grains, spices that weren’t sealed in cans or jars, and about 20 pounds of chocolate). THAT was a painful lesson. Now nearly everything is either jarred, canned or sealed up in big plastic bins in my pantry. The Container Store was my best friend back in those days.

There are differences between Cajun and Creole cuisine – Cajun tends to be more spicy (although it doesn’t have to be), Creole has more subtle flavorings (often tomato-based and with more French or Spanish heritage). Spice Hunter does make a single combo mixture of both seasonings, if you can find it. If you’re interested in learning more about the differences, I found a website called ochef, which explains a bit more. According to his information, as years have gone by – and a century or two of cooking, the two styles have married and intertwined a lot and there’s less and less distinction between them.

This salad is just perfect for a late summer harvest of vegetables – the corn, heirloom tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, etc. If you prefer a really tender steak you can use a ribeye or a New York. If you stick with the sirloin, you might want to tenderize it a bit – marinate it in some kind of acid (like a vinaigrette) for an hour before grilling, then add the Cajun seasoning. Sometimes sirloin steak can be a bit chewy – it may depend on what part of the steak you get on your plate!

What I liked: all the flavors in this salad – and topped off with the blue cheese dressing. If you’re a lover of blue, you could also add a few small chunks of it to the salad. You will hardly know there is any blue in the vinaigrette.
What I didn’t like: not enough onion! I just adore roasted or grilled red onion, so I’d add more to the salad. That’s it!

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Yesterday I told you about making some kumquat vodka, that sat in my refrigerator for about 3 weeks infusing. Today I’m telling you about what I did with the infused vodka when it was ready!

It was a few weeks ago I was watching Giada on the Food Network and she was making a summer cocktail. An Herb and Orange Negroni, she called it. Maybe I’d heard the word Negroni before, but sure didn’t know what it was. Actually a Negroni became a popular Italian cocktail in the last century, and it was gin-based. Somewhere along the line bartenders began adapting it with other ingredients from its original (gin, Campari, vermouth) by adding sweet vermouth, fruit juices, sparkling water and changing the alcohol to vodka. And when vodka was used, they renamed it Negroski (making it a Russian-language suffix – get it? – vodka=Russian=”ski” suffixes).

Watching Giada, I’d perked up at her use of the herb infused vodka since I had the kumquat vodka stewing in the refrigerator already. Perfect, I thought! Had to buy Campari first (it’s a type of bitters, a bright pinky-red color). I did have sweet vermouth I use occasionally in cooking, we had oranges on our lower slope and one of our grandkids scampered down there and clambered around the awkward hill to fetch some for us to use. They’re Valencias, not Navels, so they’re a little more tart than eating oranges. Worked fine in this cocktail, though. I forgot to decorate the glasses with some orange slices, though. I was too anxious to get them served and dashed to my photo corner to take a picture of my glass before they were all gone!

If you’re looking for a sweet fruit drink, this isn’t it. It’s tart and definitely retains some of the Campari (bitters) flavor, but it’s not overwhelming. I served it to four adults. Three liked it, our daughter Sara didn’t. She isn’t much of a drinker anyway, so I wasn’t surprised. I loved it. I drank mine and a little bit of Sara’s abandoned drink.

What I liked: the savory-ness of the drink; that it wasn’t a sweet fruit drink; how refreshing it was; and how easy it was to make as long as you have the citrus-infused vodka (or use any bottled citrus vodka you already have on hand).

What I didn’t like: nada, nothing. Great drink. Worth making. Different.

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Is that not gorgeous? Kumquats, mostly cut in half, some fresh sprigs of thyme from my garden, and a huge slug of Russian vodka (plain). Oh, there’s also a bit of simple syrup in this too – you could use sugar, but some recipes suggest dissolving the sugar first, so I took that route.

It was a few weeks ago that Darci, our friend and decorator, told me about a kumquat vodka she’d made for a group of girlfriends. I couldn’t find the recipe she had used, but found a bunch of others using kumquats. The bugs don’t like kumquats. The fruit flies haven’t found it, obviously. The rabbits and squirrels around here obviously don’t like kumquats, either. Hooray for me!

All this takes is a little bit of patience as you need to let this infuse for a few weeks. Some recipes suggest leaving it at room temp for a few days. This recipe wants refrigeration and three weeks of infusing. I loved the idea of the fresh thyme in it. Maybe if you drank this vodka straight you could pick out the herbaceous flavor, but with the drink I made you really couldn’t.

Rarely do I even have a mixed drink, but fruity ones are more palatable to me, and this just was a perfect use of the kumquats. It took every kumquat we had on our shrub to make this, and that’s okay. Tomorrow I’ll share the recipe for the drink I made with one cup (of the 2 1/2) of the vodka. If you have something you already want to make with kumquat vodka, go ahead. Otherwise, wait until tomorrow and you’ll hear all about the fruity drink I served at our brunch. I don’t drink straight vodka in any way, shape or form, so I’m not including my usual “what I liked” about it segment. Just stay tuned until tomorrow . . .

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Oh my goodness. I can’t wait to tell you about this brunch dish. It was SO good. Rockin’ with lots of flavor – from the bacon and the corn (fresh off the cob). Well, and the sharp cheddar too. I have a whole bunch of recipes to share with all of you, but you’re just going to have to wait until I can write up the recipes for each and every one of them, process all the photos, and write the stories.

I’ve had this recipe in my to-try file for awhile – it’s one from Diane Phillips (whose nickname is the “Diva of Do-Ahead”). Her claim to fame is, as her nickname implies, make-ahead dishes for every kind of celebration meal. Our recent multiple-family-birthday brunch was the perfect occasion. Corn is in season still. Bacon makes everything good. And I had a hunk of good Tillamook sharp cheddar. And eggs, and milk and sourdough bread, and butter, and green onions, dry mustard and hot sauce. Because of schedules, we needed to eat a fairly early brunch (10:30) so I really needed to make something ahead. Bingo!

Sourdough bread was sliced about 1/2 inch thick, corn and green onions were sautéed lightly, bacon was cooked, crisped and crumbled, eggs and milk were combined with the salt, dry mustard and hot sauce, and the hunk of cheese was grated. I did change one little thing in the recipe – I spooned all the corn in the middle rather than half of it on top. I found all the corn mixed in with the milk/egg mixture a bit hard to handle. So there at left you can see the cut casserole . . . there are two layers of bread, two layers of cheese and the milk/egg mixture poured twice. An the corn in the middle. I covered it in plastic wrap and it chilled overnight. An hour out at room temperature was all it needed, before going into a 350 oven for 45 minutes. We let it sit for about 10 minutes before serving.

I noticed that the top bread pieces were a bit crispy – I thought, “oh, no,” but I needn’t have worried – everybody loved the crispy toasty bread parts, me included. Be sure to use a large 9×13 pan as it will fill it nearly to the top. Not the custardy part – just the bread and cheese part. You can also make these in individual  (large) ramekins if you want, everything is made the same, but just bake for 15-20 minutes instead of the 30-40 minutes for the big pan. Actually I baked it for 45 minutes to get the top just golden brown. The interior of the strata isn’t solid in custard – know that – it just barely holds everything together. I think all the egg and milk mixture was pretty-much soaked up in the lower layer of bread.

What I liked: well, everybody except the 10 year old loved it, but he’s a finicky eater anyway. The 4-year old loved it, the 13-year old loved it and all the adults loved it. The textures were so good – the cheddar was perfect. The fresh, sweet corn was, well, fresh and sweet. I bought applewood bacon, which was delish. Loved it all.

What I didn’t like: maybe I’d cut down a bit on the amount of corn – no one could quite contain the volume of corn on their plates and it wasn’t set up in custard, so it spread out. Tasted fine, but I think I could reduce the amount by about 1/3. Otherwise, I’d make it as the recipe suggests!

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Isn’t that just the cutest tub you’ve ever seen? We’re still not done with the bathroom remodels . . . Well, 2 1/2 baths are done but the master is not finished. But it’s close . . . like about a week maybe. I took photos from my iPad and am going to upload this post from it to see how another blog posting program called BlogPress (iPad version) works. any of you savvy types out there do email me if you see problems.

There’s a shot of the master. Floors are still raw wood so far – to be stained dark and polyurethane sealed later this week.

That’s my sink. Nothing has been moved into any space yet. That’s a candle and a fancy bar of soap sitting on the counter waiting.

No showers taken in this. . . yet.

There’s a peek into the guest bedroom where we’ve been storing clothes and junk for the last several months. It’s a mess is all I can tell you. Not a pretty sight. The two twin beds are piled high. Bags on the floor. Numerous boxes stacked wherever there is space.

It’s been awhile since I’d made anything with quinoa (keen-wah). It’s a highly nutritious grain, with not a lot of flavor until you pair it with other things. It has a delicious chewy, almost crunchy but not quite, texture. It’s loaded with protein. Yes, protein, not just carbohydrates, although it has a rather high amount of carbs too! And with calories, also, actually. I was astounded when I totaled up this salad mixture and saw how many calories and grams of carbs were in a serving – most of them coming from the quinoa! So the lesson to be learned here is that you want small servings. I had it for lunch today and after eating little more than 1/3 cup, I was full.

This recipe came from the Los Angeles Times Food Section, back about 18 months ago, when the Times did a one-year retrospective (in January) of all their favorite recipes from 2009. This recipe was one of those. So does that tell you it’s something special? Yup, it is.

There are a few steps to making this, but if you take the time, you’ll be rewarded with a very special dish. For me, the star of the dish is the shiitake mushrooms. I didn’t use enough of them (didn’t use as much as the recipe called for), which was a mistake. Next time I’ll use the full 2 cups of shiitakes. They get cooked briefly in a hot wok (or frying pan), with some green onions added in at the end. Some fresh fennel gets caramelized too (separately, but in the same pan). The quinoa you make in a separate pan.  You probably can rinse it in a bowl loaded with water, and try your best to use your hand to keep the quinoa grains from going down the drain as you hold your hand on the bowl. Once the quinoa was cooked I was able to tip the pan a bit and spoon out the excess water (not very much was there). Do keep a watch on the quinoa – you don’t want to overcook it. I think mine took about 13 minutes.

The other star of this dish is lime juice. Fresh lime juice. And don’t skimp on that either. In fact, I added a bit more to the dish once I’d mixed it all up. The mixture does have a bit of soy sauce and rice wine vinegar, some garlic and peanut oil to start with. And once everything is done, you throw in some chopped Italian parsley, cilantro and I added some of the fennel fronds too. Definitely a keeper!

What I liked: the texture, the citrusy flavor that permeates it all, and the mushrooms. Oh, those shiitakes are just so good. It keeps for several days too with virtually no loss of flavor.

What I didn’t like: nothing at all. Great dish; worth making.

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