A few years ago my friend Cherrie and I attended a cooking class (at a wonderful venue in San Juan Capistrano that is no longer a cooking school) where the subject was apples. No ordinary apples however, but mostly heirloom ones. About 15 years or so ago my DH and I were with good friends, Jerry & Judy, on a driving trip in New England – in September when the leaves were just beginning to turn – and the first farm stand I saw with a big sign announcing “Fresh Apples,” I yelled and asked if we could stop. Back here in California it was in the high 90’s, but that Fall day in Vermont or New Hampshire, it was c-o-l-d, misting with rain. So East Coast Fall. I promptly bought about a dozen apples, of three varieties. I know one of them was Northern Spy. Another had “black” in the name, but I don’t recall it. The flavors were sublime. Different.

You see, where we live in Southern California, we can get nothing – and I mean nothing – except Golden, Pippin, Granny Smith, Red Delicious, McIntosh, Jonathan, Fuji, Braeburn (my DH’s favorite), and now the new Honey Crisp. Occasionally we can find Gala too. As I’m writing this I’m thinking that for many people that’s a LOT of types. But after years and years of those, and knowing there are others out there that offer very different flavor and texture, I’m in an apple-want state of mind. Actually most of those don’t come from California, but from Washington State. We have no heirlooms at all in our neck of the woods. I don’t believe they’d grow here even if we tried since our climate is only good for a couple of unique varieties (Anna, for one). We had an Anna apple in the backyard of our last house. The new owners tore down all of our gorgeous fruit trees (about 5) and put in an expansive cement-lined dog run. Makes me sad just thinking about it because the Anna tree produced some really nice apples.

So anyway, back to that cooking class. We tasted apples of a plethora of types. All very different. And from that class I still make two of the recipes – the Apple, Blue Cheese, Watercress & Honey Crostini, and the Caramelized Apple Gingerbread. There were another 5 or 6 recipes from that class, but they weren’t as memorable as the above.

The cooking class included information from the apple supplier, Applesource in Chapin, Illinois. You can order all their products online. We sampled 12 varieties that day. I made notes that the Calville Blanc was a French dessert apple (soft, good for Tarte Tatin), that Jonalicious is soft, juicy, high sugar, though. And that I liked the Macoun (like a McIntosh). And I knew I liked Northern Spy. The quote included about that apple was: “There’s no pie like a Spy Pie.”  But there were other types: Matsu, Pink Pearl, Ashmead’s Kernel (tart, firm), Cox’s Orange Pippin (very popular in the U.K., crisp, special aftertaste, but also soft, unlike our American Pippins), Esopus Spitzenberg (supposedly the parent apple of a Jonathan).

So recently I suggested to my friend Cherrie that we share an apple purchase from Applesource. The boxes arrived about 2+ weeks ago, and they’ve been stored in our wine cellar ever since. Every few days I pop down there and pick out a new variety to try. All heirlooms. Many different types than the ones we sampled at the class. All enjoyable. We’re only had four of the 12 so far. And they were on the pricey side, what with shipping and all. The idea (I thought) was that if we found some we really, really liked, maybe I’d order a bigger box of one or more of them. I might still do that, but I must remember that the shipping takes the price way up there in the stratosphere. You really want to be an apple connoisseur to do that. What we ordered was an “Antique Sampler.” They also have a (regular) Sampler of 12 too. The types change with whatever varieties happen to be ripe at the time you order or they ship.

We also ordered their cookbook. I haven’t yet made anything from it, but it’s a nice book and full of many different kinds of dishes, all using apples in one way or another. On Monday I’m going to write up a different kind of apple post – more info about apples in general. So stay tuned if you are an apple lover like I am.

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Reading as many recipes as I do in the course of a few months, unless I make notes, or recognize the print style, I can’t recall where I read or heard about a recipe. Such with this one. I think it was on somebody’s blog that I read about it. And the writer sent us off to the New York Times’ website to retrieve it, which I did, as it was in that week’s food section. I think. It wasn’t all that long ago – like a month. It’s  a Mark Bittman recipe – he of restaurant and TV fame. And cookbook fame too – he’s done one or more books about the “Best” of specific recipes (kind of like Cook’s Illustrated in a way). I don’t own any of his tomes. But, I will tell you this recipe is awfully darned good. When I did a search for this recipe I noticed a lot of other food bloggers are on this recipe’s bandwagon too. I’m  delighted to join the parade.

It’s a salad, or a side vegetable combo. The list of ingredients is simple: sweet potatoes (I used the dark orange type we call yams), onions, both roasted with olive oil, S&P, then tossed with some canned black beans (rinsed & drained), some minced bell peppers, a passel of cilantro chopped, and then the very simple dressing (pictured at left) of olive oil, some minced green chile (hot type like jalapeno), garlic and lime juice. Very simple. And very extra delicious, I assure you. The recipe said to toss the salad with the dressing just before serving, but I think soaking it in the dressing for awhile just brightened all the flavors. There was still a bit of dressing in the bottom of the bowl which I just left there for the leftovers. My first foray into Mark Bittman’s world produced a great recipe. I’d make this again anytime.
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A year ago: Peppers for Cold Meats (a kind of relish – I liked it so much I’ve posted about it twice and have made it 3 times in the last 6 months)

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Just so you know . . . there’s no oatmeal here. No brown sugar here either. An apple crisp of a different order.

This isn’t a new recipe to this blog. Just an old, but big family favorite. Well, we don’t have “family” at home anymore – just my hubby and me. So I should rephrase: likely it’s just MY favorite. I just love-love this stuff. My mother’s recipe, tinkered with just slightly over the years. Very easy, goes together in about 20 minutes. I’ve even been known to eat a little bowl of it for breakfast. Especially if I’ve made it with Splenda. This time I made it for my friend Norma who needs all the calories she can get, so I used all sugar. And even sprinkled more sugar than usual on the top of her dish. I made a second, smaller casserole of these apples for us – with less sugar. Enough for just a couple or three servings.

Doesn’t look much different here, before baking, than it does when it’s fully cooked. Here you see the crumbled flour, sugar, baking powder, egg mixture  sprinkled all over, dotted with butter, spices (cinnamon & nutmeg) and then sprinkled with some cold water (which gives it the crisp part). Those butter pats are quite small – this was not a really large oval baker – about 5×9 – and I used about 2 T. unsalted butter altogether.

It’s baked for about 40 minutes (35-45, depending on the apples and the thickness of the apple layer), cooled, then scooped out in a bowl with some vanilla scented and sweetened whipped cream (my favorite) or vanilla ice cream (second choice) or drizzled with heavy cream (third choice). My favorite thing about this type of apple dessert is the crispy topping. It’s not like a biscuit exactly (it’s not that thick); it’s not like any of the oatmeal-based toppings (this topping isn’t chewy in the least); it’s not like a crumbled pie crust, either (it’s crumbled anyway, not rolled or formed). It’s not a sweet top either (because there’s not that much sugar in it to begin with). The only sugar in this apple dessert is in the topping. There’s none at all in the apples. Did I mention that I made these with “honey crisp” apples? They’re very crunchy and sweet. So I cut down on the sugar by about a quarter, and they were still plenty sweet. On the baker for my friend I added more sugar on top, as I mentioned above. On the one we kept I reduced the sugar. I can vouch – it was as good as ever.

If you want the recipe – it’s in my archives from 2007. It’s a winner.

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This sort of looks like a sirloin steak, doesn’t it? Nope. It’s a huge, thick, tender, fresh halibut steak that was just falling apart. Good kind of falling apart. Full of flavor. I forgot to put some more green onions on top for garnish. They’re in the sauce, but hardly visible in the photo.

This recipe came via our daughter-in-law Karen’s mother, Barbara. She got it from a cookbook:  Elena’s Favorite Foods: California Style by Elena Zelayeta. Barbara served this one night when we were all together for a dinner. So, I asked her for the recipe! And when I tell you this is EASY, please believe me. It’s truly easy and comes together in less than 10 minutes. I served it with pan-sautéed zucchini and a veggie-laden green salad.

So what’s in the amber sauce? Nothing but soy sauce, sherry, lemon juice (I used lime) and green onions. How cinchy is that? The halibut is dipped in seasoned flour (seasoned only with pepper since the soy sauce provides plenty of sodium) and pan fried in a little oil. After browning both sides the sauce is added and you steam it until it’s just done. I removed the center bone afterwards, which is why it began to fall apart. Our steak was large enough for two people, so I probably should have cut it in half before cooking. Once cooked the bone didn’t cut apart with any ease. So, whack that steak in half first. Our neighborhood Costco had these fresh Alaskan halibut steaks for $6.99/lb.
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A year ago: Thai Pumpkin Shrimp Soup (oh, that was so delish – I need to make that one again)

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Really, I do love green beans. You can fix and eat them in SO many ways. Even plain with just a hint of butter, salt and pepper. If you’ve read my blog for long you know that I’m a huge fan of a recipe for Garlic Green Beans & Olive Oil. So easy, and I could eat a mountain of them. I was lured from the olive oil and garlic route in a class with Phillis Carey, awhile back. Hers have the allure of hazelnuts. But they’re also very easy. A dish you could make for guests, as long as you cook the beans ahead of time and have them and the hazelnuts all ready to finish just before dining.

When I made them a few days ago with some of the haricot verts (baby) beans from Costco, I decided to change the recipe a little bit, mainly because the hazelnuts I had needed to be skinned. Trader Joe’s carries them most of the year, but they’re not roasted or skinned, so the little buggers have to be toasted and rubbed to get the skin off. The easiest way to do this is to roast the nuts in a hot oven for a few minutes, then roll them around between two layers of terry cloth towels.

After roasting the nuts in a 400 oven for about 4-7 minutes, they looked like this – notice the cracks on some of them. They got hot enough that the skins began to crack off. That’s a good sign.

Here they are on a rough towel just before I started rolling them. You simply place the other half of the towel over the nuts and use the flat of your hands on the top towel to rub and roll around. Sometimes an errant nut will escape. I usually gather them back into a closer circle and do it again and again. Takes just a minute or so.

This is the result: most of the nuts have released their skins. You’ll notice one nut (top right) didn’t. I rolled that one several times all by itself. It still didn’t release the skin, so I chopped it anyway. A few skins won’t matter, but it’s good to get most of them off the nuts. The skins are bitter (well, somewhat bitter), therefore you do need to do this step – unless you can find mostly skinned ones already.

Since the skinning process toasted them, I didn’t want to pan-toast as in Phillis’ recipe. So I decided to use olive oil (rather than butter) and ADD some true hazelnut oil at the end. Then I tossed the chopped hazelnuts in at the end. I used my pounder to chop the nuts – that took about one minute max. Either way you make this, it has a distinct hazelnut flavor. Really delicious – either hot or cold. I served these as leftovers a night or two later, cold, and they were just as good. If you used butter you’ll need to reheat the beans to melt the butter – with olive oil you don’t.
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Files: MasterCook 5+ and MasterCook 14 (click link to open in MC – 14 contains photo)

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Lately it seems we can’t get enough of soups. All kinds of soups. Meat soups. Chicken soups. Even fish soups. But hot soups altogether. I don’t very often make vegetarian soups unless they have plenty of heft to them – not meaning fat or carbs – but chewiness or texture. This soup doesn’t really have either chewiness or a whole lot of texture. But it has some, and it’s got lots of gentle flavor. The flavor is regulated by the kind of sharp cheddar you put into it. If you want some heft, then you use a very strong Cheddar. I recommend an English cheddar, like a Cotswold, or some other kind of very sharp English type. See what your local cheese shop or market has to offer. Just remember: sharp, sharp, sharp.

This soup comes together in less than 20 minutes. Yes, really. Chopping the vegetables is the most time consuming thing you have to do. It contains chicken broth and half and half, some dry sherry, some thyme, cayenne, Bay leaf. Then the grated Cheddar is added in AFTER you take it off the heat. If you add most cheeses into a hot liquid, while you’re still simmering, it will separate. There are very few cheese that don’t cause that chemical reaction – Fontina being one of them. Can’t remember the others. But Fontina is not what you want in this soup – it’s far too mild tasting. This soup doesn’t have other strong flavors, so the Cheddar is IT. So anyway, you need to have the soup off-heat, then you whisk in the cheese. The soup is very hot, so it doesn’t take long for the cheese to melt completely. Ladle into bowls immediately and chow down. Ideally, you’ll serve this with some bread or savory muffin on the side. Even English muffins toasted with some cheese would be nice (and easy). In the class, Phillis served this with cornmeal, cheddar and sun-dried tomato muffins. I was lazy and didn’t do any of those, so we ended up having 1 1/2 bowls of soup instead.
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Does this salad ring a nostalgic bell in your head? I know my mother used to make something like this when I was very young. I think her concoction was just peas, cheese and mayo. Maybe it included some chopped-up sweet pickle. My friend Norma, who is recovering from major surgery, is trying to eat a few more things – like veggies – not just the puddings and smooth things she was eating a few weeks ago. That’s progress, I think. So I asked her what sounded good. She mentioned a pea salad with cheese cubes in it. Sure thing. She also thought green beans sounded good. So I cooked up a batch of baby green beans with bacon and onion. And I tried to create a pea salad that would intrigue her taste buds. She nixed the pickles (I only had relish, and that didn’t appeal to her).

But I added in some other things that may not have been in any of the 1950 era recipes – like bacon. A few recipes I found included macaroni, so I dug around in my pasta stash and found these baby tubes. And I included some hard boiled eggs in the salad too. I scooped out a small portion for us to eat and took the bulk of it to Norma. The salad is really good – amazing how just some simple ingredients can taste so good. Not exactly gourmet, but hey, once in awhile we need comfort food, right?
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A year ago: Chicken Chili
Two years ago: Chocolate Almond Biscotti

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Last weekend I enjoyed spending time with my friend Linda. She lives in Carlsbad, about halfway between where we live and San Diego, the town where I grew up. She has an adorable condo with an ocean view. We talked and talked and talked. She loves to travel, and has accompanied us on a trip to France and one to Italy (both times we rented villas for about 10 people and had a fun group, fun time). She just returned from a safari trip to Africa, and had exciting tales to tell about her adventures. She brought me a gift – a set of giraffe salad tongs and some cute giraffe small spoons for appetizers. Really useful and a conversation piece!

Other than shopping and having a nice dinner out one night at a place in Hillcrest, we just enjoyed one another’s company and talked. Linda’s a very good cook – I have several recipes of hers on this blog, including Bombay Chicken, Corned Beef & Cabbage, and her delish Carrot Cake. Now I have another one. Linda had prepared a pasta dish for us on Friday night, and on Saturday morning we lazed around for awhile enjoying several cups of coffee.

On her recent trip to Africa, she purchased an espresso set that just is SO adorable. I covet this little set. I’m going to hunt around on the internet and see if anybody has such things. She paid about $70 for the set in Capetown. As you can see, it’s decorated in bright, vibrant colors, with pictures of a guinea fowl on the side of each. Heaven knows what it would cost to ship, but I’m going to look anyway. In this picture, that little cup on the left full of espresso was consumed moments after I snapped the picture.

So, back to breakfast. Linda whipped up this nice egg dish for us on Saturday morning, and we had the leftovers the next morning, just reheated in the microwave. I know I’ve had this before, some years ago. It’s not a new recipe, or anything unusual. Just canned green chiles, eggs, cheese, butter and cottage cheese. Also a bit of flour and baking powder. It doesn’t take long to whip this together, but it does need to be prepared just before baking. You can’t let a baking powder mixture get wet and then sit. Once it gets wet, it needs to do its thing soon, otherwise it just gives out, dies.
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A year ago: Salmon with Parsnips
Two years ago: Butternut Squash Fries

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You can count on one hand the number of recipes on this blog using canned tuna. And I don’t know about you, but mostly I use canned tuna for sandwiches, or salad, but not much else. The other day I ran across a recipe from w-a-a-ay long ago. Back to the 1950’s when my best friend Linda C. and I used to spend hours and hours every day together. We were young teens then, too young for boyfriends. So we played Parcheesi, and Monopoly, and watched Linda’s older sister get ready for dates. Linda’s mother would fix lunch for us sometimes, and occasionally I’d spend the night at her house too, and usually I was invited for dinner, or Sunday breakfast. Or both.

The Sunday breakfast was almost always waffles and homemade sausage gravy that was served on top of the waffles. Linda’s dad was the Sunday breakfast cook, and he was really proud of his waffle spread. Brings back lots of nostalgic memories thinking about that. Linda’s mother, Van, was a good cook. I have one other recipe of hers – a Lamb Curry, with about 21 condiments. It’s been years since I made that. Linda’s parents used to entertain with some regularity and the 21 curry was a favorite. Sometimes Linda and I would help in the kitchen mincing and chopping.

But one of their family favorites was this tuna dish. And I used to fix it every so often, although I’d lost track of the recipe until I found it in MY mother’s recipe box a few weeks ago. As you can imagine, it’s an inexpensive meal, what with just a can of tuna and some English muffins. The other things usually were readily available too. This does contain the ubiquitous cream of mushroom soup, which I keep in my pantry – you just never know when you’re going to need it. Like I did the other night when we returned home from a weekend away. We weren’t overly hungry, so as I stood in the pantry I spotted the tuna. Aha moment.

This recipe is WAY EASY. Probably takes about 10 minutes to make if you’re slow. Toast the English muffins (I used some seeded baguette thick slices that I toasted in the oven) and the tuna comes together in about 7-8 minutes, I’d say. Van’s original recipe didn’t call for peas, but somewhere along the line I added them, and have continued to use them. Her recipe also called for a huge amount of sliced black olives. They aren’t my favorite thing, so I reduce the quantity a lot and add Kalamata instead, but you can use whatever you want to. The fresh lemon juice is key – it gives the sauce a nice tang, although it really isn’t noticeable. So this recipe is a salute to my friend Linda, and her Mom, Van.
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A year ago: Soup Season

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We don’t eat a lot of bread at our house – generally a half a slice each for breakfast. Once in awhile we’ll have a sandwich, but believe it or not, most bread gets moldy before we use it up. We freeze bread some, but I’m never very happy with it after it’s been in the freezer for more than 4-5 days. I wrap it in foil, then in a freezer plastic bag and still the edges seem to dry out. A few months ago we had just started using what we could, stored at room temp and throwing it out once it got moldy. But I was tired of the grainy, seedy bread we’d been having.

Since it’s Fall, I dug out my tried and true pumpkin yeast bread recipe and one day when I was home, and I made bread. Normally when you think of pumpkin bread, you likely think of a sweet quick bread. This is not that kind. This is a perfect sandwich or toasting bread. It’s NOT sweet, although it does have a little bit of sugar in it. It’s a soft bread – I use 3/4 white bread flour and 1/4 whole wheat flour. Our normal half-slice portion at breakfast has been upped to a whole slice each. It’s so nice with a little bit of butter. Here you can see the loaves just out of the oven.

If you’ve not been reading my blog for a long time, you may not know that I used to bake a whole lot of bread. When I was a young mom, trying to make some money, for a lunch out, for a babysitter now and then. I had a very small but thriving business, of sorts, baking bread once a week that I sold to friends and family. I was a stay-at-home mom, and enjoyed the process of making bread. I had a menu of about 10 varieties I made, including Stollen at Christmastime. And this bread wasn’t on the menu because I hadn’t discovered it yet.

Years later, when I was working full-time, I invested in one of the first bread machines, and we enjoyed loaf after loaf when our kids were teenagers. This recipe is one that I adapted from one of the bread machine cookbooks. But I’ve found that it works best to make it by hand. Well, you can mix it in the machine for the first round, but let it rise in bread pans for the second rising. It will become a beautiful tall loaf, worthy of the finest toasters or turkey sandwiches. This time I kneaded it in the Kitchen Aid mixer with the dough hook, and did the 2nd time by hand, kneading in the raisins and nuts as I worked.

This isn’t a new recipe to my blog – I posted it first a year ago. Although I’ve been making this bread a couple times a year for about 25 years. It’s absolutely the BEST with Thanksgiving turkey leftovers in a sandwich. Don’t be intimidated by making yeast bread – as long as you have a few hours when you can tend to the bread a couple of times, this is a pretty foolproof recipe. I’ve never had it fail. If you want, add different fruit (dried apricots, craisins) or nuts (pecans). Or eliminate one or the other if you don’t have them on hand.
Click here to get to the recipe.

I’ve submitted this recipe to Yeastspotting.

A year ago: Pear Crisp (ooh, was that ever good!)
Two years ago: Twice Baked Cauliflower Take Two

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