The other day I found an old Bon Appetit magazine in amongst a stack of other things. Not where it should have been, and un-read. It must have been about 2009 when Molly Wizenberg starting writing a column for the magazine. She told the story about how she’d recently “discovered” green goddess dressing. Until that point she’d never heard of it, but tipped her hat to some of the older readers who probably did know of it. Certainly I did – it used to be a regular at restaurants, before the day that restaurants used ready-made dressings. My mother didn’t make it, but I recall one of the restaurants our family frequented served it.

By tradition, green goddess is a mayo and/or sour cream based dressing. It originates from a hotel in San Francisco in the mid 1920’s and honored a stage actress who starred in a play about “green goddesses.” If you do a search for the recipe you’ll find oodles of variations (including some with tofu instead of mayo). And most recently, some with avocado (like this one).

The dressing is filled with lots and lots of fresh herbs – that’s what makes it green, you see.  I was just positive I’d already blogged about green goddess, but in doing a search here on my blog – and amongst my recipes – I came up short. Having made this dressing from the magazine, I now want to find my other, older recipe and make a comparison.

Molly’s recipe uses similar ingredients to the original – except mayo and sour cream. Her dressing is based on one she found in a Chez Panisse cookbook (the one about vegetables). So because I had aging avocados in the refrigerator, I decided to try Molly’s version. When I got done with it I wasn’t so sure I liked it – too blah, I thought. After letting it chill for an hour or so I still didn’t think it was “right,” so I added in a couple tablespoons of mayo. Once that was mixed in, it took on more of the taste of a green goddess, to me anyway. So, I’ve altered Molly’s recipe a bit. Meanwhile, I’m going to keep searching for my recipe which is being very elusive at the moment. If I find it I’ll do a comparison. With some leftovers of this I served a dollop – well, this stuff doesn’t “dollop,” as it’s a thin pourable dressing. But I served it on top of the Beef Burgers I made a few days ago. And the rest of it was used on green salads. It could also be a dip – it’s flavorful enough for that. This recipe is certainly lower in fat than the real stuff, so you might want to give it a try. With avocado in it, it won’t keep very long – so use it up in a few days. That’s why I made a small batch with just 1/4 of an avocado to start with.

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A year ago: Cabbage Salad with Corn, White Beans, Raisins and Thyme
Two years ago: Black Bean Layered Dip
Three years ago: Lemon Rice Pilaf

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Goodness me, was this ever good. The day after I made it a friend came to visit who’d watched me put it together (but who wasn’t invited to the dinner – mean, huh?) and asked to taste it. Not only did she love it, but after dishing up a few bites for her, I just licked the spoon clean and it was even delicious cold out of the refrigerator!

The recipe has an interesting story behind it. Amanda Hesser, who compiled the 1000+ recipes of  previously published ones into the new monstrous cookbook published last year from the New York Times, The Essential New York Times Cookbook: Classic Recipes for a New Century, wrote this as the headnote to the recipe:

Warning to food snobs: the following recipe contains Ritz crackers.

As much as the Times food writers and editors (myself included) like to think we’re covering the nation’s foodways, it’s a bit of a lie. We are and have been preponderantly New Yorkers, smitten with the new and the best on our little island, and we have sometimes ignored – or even turned up our noses at – the way most Americans are cooking.

Julia Reed, who wrote regularly for the Magazine in the early 2000s, was one of the few who had the guts to run recipes involving jarred mayonnaise and iceberg lettuce. In this casserole – and I mean casserole in the American pile-in-the-ingredients sense, not the French – a moist squash puree is held together with grated cheddar and Ritz cracker crumbs. It’s the kind of dish that probably won a cooking contest or two, and it will win you plenty of compliments. Whether or not you reveal the secret ingredient [the Ritz crackers] is up to you.

With that kind of write-up, I decided it needed to be tried. And since one of our guests was recovering from surgery and barely starting to eat anything except soft foods, I thought this would be a perfect one to try. It does use squash puree to start with, so it’s almost a soft food to begin with.

But, with all the different things in it – like red and green bell pepper, onion, garlic, jalapeno, cheddar, eggs, cream, sugar, salt and cayenne – plus the fresh bread crumbs on the top – it makes it a company-worthy dish for sure. The recipe is available at the New York Times website. It was published in 2002.

It’s a cinchy dish to make – and if you didn’t put the bread crumbs on the top until later, you could easily prepare this ahead of time, which I should have done. But the recipe didn’t indicate  you could, so for my first time through I stuck to the recipe exactly.

What can I tell you except that the flavors are just dynamite. You can’t taste the Ritz crackers, of course, but it does give the squash part a delicious texture, somehow. I don’t know the how of it, just that it is. There is just the right amount of heat (with one jalapeno and some cayenne added). I left the jalapeno out of one part of it so our grandson would have some, but he didn’t like it period even so. But he was the only person at the table who didn’t. Trust me on this one, okay?

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Two years ago: Strawberry Mango Margarita
Three years ago: Trout Fillets
Four years ago: Creamy Cold Pea Soup

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Were these ever a treat! There are various versions of this bacon recipe out there on the internet – some using more sugar, some using just a speck of cinnamon. Some with other seasonings too. I’d never had any version until recently at a cooking class with Phillis Carey. She uses the regular sized sliced bacon – in other words, not thick sliced – and makes a small mixture of brown sugar and cinnamon (you can also add 1/4 tsp. cayenne or 2 tsp. dry mustard to it also if you’d like a little zip). One side of the bacon is dipped into the brown sugar mix (or you can sprinkle it over the bacon) then you gently twist each end in opposite directions and place the twisted slice on a parchment-lined baking sheet. You do need to let the bacon sit out at room temp before starting this – so the bacon is pliable and twist-able.

There they are, raw,  just pressed into the sugar/cinnamon mixture (on one side only) and twisted onto parchment lined pans. In the oven they go for about 15-25 minutes and they’re done. You’ll find it impossible to not dip into them while you’re fixing the rest of your special breakfast. What’s nice about making this type is that you can do the prep ahead of time, pop them in the oven when guests arrive and you can be doing other things while they’re baking. You can freeze the finished bacon too, for about a month. These could also be served as an appetizer. One recipe I read suggested turkey bacon be used too.

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A year ago: Blood Orange Polenta Upside Down Cake
Two years ago: Pickled Grapes (an appetizer)

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As it turned out, we didn’t get to celebrate a family gathering on Easter. Somebody was ill in every family group that was going to come – me included, I was down with a cold. So we decided to have our Easter dinner about 8 days later. One family had gone to Hawaii in the interim, so they couldn’t come, but everyone else did. And my Scrabble group was cancelled that day, so I had more time to cook than I’d thought I would.

So what did we have? I ordered another one of those Kurobuta hams from Idaho, from Snake River Farms. Fortunately the ham has a 90-day shelf life if it’s still sealed up in the packaging, so delaying a week made no difference. I prepared the fantastic Mustard Sauce too (a recipe from David Rosengarten that was included in my first shipment of this fantastic ham). I made this potato and pear gratin, a summer squash casserole which I’ll share with you next time. We had a lovely green salad with some fresh fruit in it. Dessert – it was fresh strawberries and blackberries made into the so-delicious Mixed Berry Meringue Parfaits that I’ve made before using Trader Joe’s vanilla meringue cookies, vanilla ice cream, the fresh berries and a little mound of whipped cream.

So now, to this potato dish. Knowing that I probably had a hundred potato dishes in my cookbooks, I went to Eat Your Books, where I maintain a list of all of my cookbooks (well, most of them anyway), and typed in “potato.” Up came lots of recipes that are in my miscellaneous cookbooks. This one sounded best – from Nicole Aloni’s book, Secrets from a Caterer’s Kitchen. The pear in with the potatoes sounded like a nice combination with ham. And it was, I think. First you cook the 1/4-inch cut potato slices in milk until nearly done (that milk is discarded, although you could probably use it in a soup or something else), then the potatoes, pears and Gruyere cheese are layered in the casserole dish. You mix up half-and-half, thyme, horseradish, salt and pepper and that is the liquid in the casserole. I do need to tell you – in case you think horseradish doesn’t sound all that appealing, it was really good! I mean, REALLY good. The flavor was subtle and someone almost has to tell you horseradish is in there, but once you know, it’s an “oh, yea” moment. The recipe said to rinse and drain the horseradish – that obviously subtle-fies it as you could hardly taste it.

It bakes for 45 minutes, the foil top is removed and a little bit of Parmesan cheese is sprinkled on top and it continues to bake for another 10 minutes. Surprisingly, the potatoes were barely done (even though they’d been 90% precooked in milk before they went into the casserole). So next time I’d probably bake it a little longer, perhaps.

The pears, also cut the same thickness of 1/4 inch, just blended right in with the potatoes. Only if you ate it singly could you tell it was a pear. You can see one piece there in the photo above – the one with the thyme on it. I only know it’s pear because of the shape of the piece. All the potatoes were round pieces. So yes, we liked this dish a lot and I’d definitely make it again.

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A year ago: White Cheddar Apple Bacon Cheesecake
Two years ago: Orange Coconut Sour Cream Cookies
Three years ago: White Chicken Chili
Four years ago: Lemon Velvet Gelato

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This is one fantastic recipe. The kind that if I were a swearing person I’d be saying OMG! But I don’t say that, so just take my word for it! I cannot tell you how absolutely off the charts this was. I created the recipe myself – I had fresh baby spinach – and I’d defrosted some lean ground beef. And a new favorite recipe was made.

First of all, you mix the ground beef with a few slices of very finely minced crisped bacon. In reading a recent cooking magazine it was mentioned that some East Coast chef was frustrated with his bacon burgers because the bacon slices fall off or out of the burger (this being one with buns, I suppose). So he started adding raw bacon to the raw meat. There was no recipe – it was merely mentioned in an article. That got the idea brewing in my head. I decided to try it myself, but cooked the bacon first. I mixed the bacon, some dried thyme, salt, pepper and eggs with the ground beef and made patties. I let them rest in the refrigerator for a couple of hours, then lightly they were dredged in flour before frying them in grapeseed oil.

Meanwhile I made the spinach – I sautéed some red onion finely minced up – then added the spinach just before the burgers were done – so the spinach was barely wilted. I added some salt, pepper, ground nutmeg, a tiny little drizzle of cream, a bit of feta cheese and lastly a speck of butter.

The burgers were crisped up in the pan, then removed to a heated plate. Be careful not to over cook them! I poured off all but a speck of the oil, then added some vermouth. It bubbled away until it turned to a light slurry. Then I added a little splash of sherry vinegar, cooked that for a minute or two, and off heat I added a tablespoon or so of unsalted butter. On each individual dinner plate I scooped some spinach, placed the burger on top, spooned the sauce over each one, then sprinkled the top with some additional feta cheese. Voila! If I’d wanted to serve anything else with it I’d have made mashed potatoes. Or some steamed and pureed cauliflower made to act like mashed potatoes. If so, I’d have increased the volume of sauce so there would be enough to drizzle over some of that potatoes. I think I would have placed the spinach and the potatoes side by side, put the burger right smack in the middle, and drizzled the sauce over both – but mostly it goes on the burger.

This would make a scrumptious company meal – the only problem is it must be cooked at the last minute. But the flavors were superb, if I do say so myself. Maybe I’ll try making these with ground turkey, or half turkey and half beef. Maybe it could be done with a chicken breast too. I’ll let you know how that tastes!

Some of the idea for this came from my old standby, French Hamburgers, a Julia Child recipe I’ve been making for about 45 years. At least, the sauce did. The rest of it just came to me as I was cooking along. I do hope you’ll give this a try. So very delicious!

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With a lovely double-thick pork chop to grill, I searched for a rub or glaze to go on it and found this one, a VERY easy glaze to slather on the meat half an hour or so before grilling. It’s a Bobby Flay recipe, although I found it at The Way the Cookie Crumbles, and she found it at Smitten Kitchen’s blog. About the only change I could discover was the addition of fresh rosemary. Since I have a huge supply of that in my garden, I definitely wanted to include it!

The glaze has a pronounced mustard-i-ness – the most important ingredient is mustard. But not the yellow ballpark stuff – we’re talking grainy mustard and Dijon both. And once mustard grills, it really hardly tastes like mustard anyway. The photo at right shows the dry stuff:  garlic, smoky Spanish paprika, rosemary, salt and pepper. But that’s it. It takes about 3-4 minutes to put it together. I slathered it on the pork and let it sit at room temp for about 30 minutes before my DH grilled it to 150°.

Result? We loved it. The glaze had a ton of character and flavor. Bobby Flay says you can use this on any kind of meat (beef, pork, chicken, lamb). I’ll be trying it again on a different type of meat. You can also cut meat into cubes, marinate it in the sauce, then push the pieces onto skewers to make kebabs. You do want to use a relatively quick-cooking meat with this glaze.

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A year ago: Black Raspberry Ice Cream Float
Two years ago: A photo of a Riddling Rack used as an herb garden
Three years ago: Lemon Oregano Vinaigrette

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The other day I was thinking about chocolate. Of late, I haven’t had much chocolate except in an occasional cookie. And what I was craving was a brownie. Then I recalled this recipe, one that was originally published in Chocolatier magazine a very long time ago. A magazine that is no longer, unfortunately. I never subscribed, but occasionally bought an issue. I did a search on the internet just in case it still existed, but could find nothing concrete.

Don’t you just want to reach right into the screen and grab that piece? Way back in about 1989 Chocolatier published an article about the best of the best brownies. We’d been to the home of some business associates of my DH, and the wife, Karen, served these incredible brownies to us, with some good vanilla ice cream. I was smitten with them. Karen kindly snail-mailed me a photocopy of the recipe a week or so later (email didn’t exist back then), and over the years I’ve made these a few times. I’ve just never blogged about them before, so that means I haven’t made them in over 4 years!

You do need both semisweet and dark chocolate to make these. Other than that – and some corn syrup, walnuts and a few eggs, the other ingredients are regular staples in most kitchens. What makes them different? I have no idea, except the combo of the dark and medium chocolate seems in just the right proportion. They’re not overly sweet, which is something that’s important to me. I’m not so much a candy-type person – except for very small pieces, even fudge is too sweet for my taste buds. But these are rich with chocolate, no question about that.

It’s best, really, if you bake these the day before you need them, as they’re more easily cut into bars or squares after they’ve set overnight on your kitchen counter. They like to have a rest (and firm up just a bit) before you easily remove the entire pan full using the foil sling (see photo) and set a knife into them. They keep (closed up in an airtight container) at room temp for about 5 days. Otherwise, freeze them if you think the recipe makes too much for you to eat in that time period. I do love these brownies. Here on my blog I do have another brownie – called Classic Brownies – The Best Ever. And my Heavenly Cream Cheese Brownies too. Oh, I do love those as well. Sigh. I just love chocolate! Anyway, the Classic Brownies are one of my favorites, but they’re quite plain. These, on the other hand, contain nuts and chocolate chunks. There’s a place in my repertoire for both!

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A year ago: Chocolate Chip Cookies – Silver Moon Bakery (a real favorite)
Two years ago: Cornflake Crusted Halibut with Aioli Sauce
Three  years ago: Shrimp Bacon Veggie Chowder

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For Easter morning, it’s traditional that our 120+ voice choir has a potluck breakfast in between the first and second service (we have three on Easter morning, actually four if you count the praise service too, but we don’t sing in that one). By the time I got to the signup sheet, everything was spoken for except egg dishes. And whatever I made had to be delivered to the staging area by 6:45 am. But it needed to keep warm for about 90 minutes or more before we’d eat it. SO, what to do? First I retrieved my thermal covered dish. Then I started hunting for recipes and remembered these cute little eggy muffins that I’d read about over at Kalyn’s Kitchen blog. I took several recipes and combined them, using different quantities, but in general they are similar to Kalyn’s. I used more cheese. More eggs. More green onions and more pancetta (she used ham). One unique ingredient is almond meal – not what you might expect in a egg kind of thing, but it adds protein. Kalyn makes these up in quantity (well, using her recipe, of course, not my adapted one) for quick and easy breakfasts.

Actually I made these the day before Easter, and moments before we left for church the next morning I reheated them in the microwave, then they went into the thermal carrier. I did get to taste the little smidgen that was left in the bottom of several of the muffin cups and they were good. I liked the texture (note it does have flour – and the almond meal both) and I especially liked the cheese. You could easily vary this by using different cheeses. Kalyn does caution you if you reheat them to not reheat too long as they’ll continue to cook – especially in the microwave – and they might get tough. If I were serving it at home I might add some fresh tomato salsa to the table to go alongside.

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A year ago: Rose’s Vinaigrette

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The latest issue of Food and Wine magazine had a quick (and easy) method of making carnitas (pork) tacos. Two of our grandchildren were visiting the past week, and I know they enjoy Mexican food, so this seemed like an easy entrée. I served it with a green salad, and that was dinner.

The pork shoulder roast should be trimmed of noticeable fat, cut into small chunks, and it’s pressure-cooker cooked for 25 minutes. Do run the pressure at a low level if possible. Also, don’t put much water in the pan – it makes some fluid (water and fat) as it cooks, but after the meat is cooked, you mix the limited amount of fluid with the three spice powders (ancho, chipotle and achiote) to make a kind of sauce on the meat at the end. The meat chunks are drained, then briefly fried in a bit of vegetable oil – to caramelize the outside edges a little. Then you just pile some pieces onto a hot corn tortilla, add some cilantro, a squirt of lime juice and some sliced avocado. If you desire, put out some shredded cabbage, and cheese and let people help themselves. Result? Well, this isn’t quite as flavorful as a many-hour roasted carnitas roast, but for a quick weeknight dinner this was just fine. Flavor was good and it made for an easy cooking experience. I do have another recipe on my blog for a caramelized pork carnitas also. That recipe requires a bit more cooking time than this one, but it has some added steps too. Both are good, but if time isn’t a problem, I’d opt for the caramelized one which also has a bunch of cheese added to it as well. I adapted the magazine recipe a little (I used more pork and I’m glad I did because we barely had enough for 5 people), so the recipe below has been changed with my additions and changes.

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A year ago: Chicken Breasts with Maple Mustard Sauce
Two years ago: Mint Juleps with Agave Nectar
Three years ago: Caramelized Onion Sage Puffs

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Have you learned yet, that when I tell you you need to make something (like this salad) you believe me? I don’t say it all that often – you  HAVE to make this cuz it’s just so gosh-darned good. I’ve been making it for years – probably about 30 years – from the Silver Palate Cookbook when the original book came out. I bought it and this was the very first recipe I made from the book. And I’ve been making it ever since!

Here’s a photo of the dressing after I poured it over the salad – it hasn’t been mixed in yet – but that’s what the dressing looks like. And it’s the dressing that “makes” the salad. And it’s really nothing all that unusual – it’s the Silver Palate’s own “Our Favorite Vinaigrette,” from the same book. It’s olive oil, red wine vinegar, some herbs, Dijon mustard, and a tiny bit of sugar. The rice – because it’s a carb – soaks up oodles of the dressing. And THAT’S what makes this salad great.

With summer coming on, this makes a great salad to take to a picnic or somebody else’s home for a barbecue. It isn’t just for an outdoor occasion, or for summer weather, though. Any time of year is fine – but I’d say it’s better in the summer. You can make everything up ahead of time and toss it together with the dressing just before serving it. Or, you can mix it up about an hour before serving. It’s not all that great after a day – whatever happens, it loses its great flavors – but it’s still good. So, if you don’t think you’re going to eat it all in the first sitting, set the dry rice mixture aside and add the dressing later – even the next day.

So, make this, okay?

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A year ago: Blood Orange Polenta Upside Down Cake
Two year ago: Pickled Grapes (an appetizer)

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