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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Surely over the years I’d read about shrimp and grits, but for whatever reason, it never appealed to me much. Or let’s say it didn’t appeal enough to make it; nor had I ever ordered it on the rare occasions when it might have been on a menu. But looking at what I had in the refrigerator to serve alongside some shrimp for dinner the other night, I decided I’d adapt an internet recipe from Bobby Flay. Not only was it easy, but it was downright delicious. Fabulous, actually. We both sat in contented silence relishing each bite. Until the two bowls were slicked clean.

So what exactly was it that made it so good? Well, there’s no question the butter, milk and grated sharp Cheddar cheese helped the grits (aka polenta) along the path to outstanding flavor. That served as the bed for the quickly-made shrimp with bacon, lemon juice, garlic, Italian parsley and green onions. There’s really not much else to it. I made creamy grits/polenta (using half milk, half water), and I added more lemon juice and parsley than Flay’s recipe. Actually I used fat-free half and half for the milk, but 2% milk is just fine.

I also made some sautéed Swiss chard too, thanks to Karen, our daughter-in-law who shared bounty from her garden and her sister’s veggie patch. To serve, I scooped the grits into the bottom of a wide deep bowl (a pasta bowl), then placed the shrimp on one side and the Swiss chard on the other. You can’t quite see the chard in the background of the picture, but that dark unfocused blob is it.

It helps to get all the ingredients ready before you begin – or at least while the polenta is simmering, gather up everything else since once you start cooking the shrimp it’s quick. I needed to add some water to keep the polenta creamy during the last 8 or so minutes of the 20 minutes of cooking time. The Swiss chard takes but a few minutes – we like it with some texture still remaining, so cooking it for only 4-5 minutes is max. I’ve included that recipe below – it’s ever so simple.
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A year ago: Baked Eggs with chorizo & cannellini beans
Two years ago: Chicken with Lemon and Garlic Crust

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Well now. You haven’t seen very many pizza or focaccia recipes on my blog. Why? Because I don’t make them all that much as we try to limit those kinds of carbs. There is one pizza post I did about two years ago (that’s the last time I made it!) – the Chicken, Red Onion, Kalamata Olive and Pesto Pizza – and when I make pizza, that’s about the ONLY one I prepare. But when I had this focaccia a week or so ago, served with the Italian Sausage & Tomato Soup that was so off-the-charts good, I knew I wanted to make this at home. I may have used just a bit more cheese, but with that one exception, I made it exactly as Phillis made it. It’s so perfect to pair with the soup – any soup just about – but it was particularly good with the Italian flavors of the sausage and tomato soup.

It would really help if you live in Trader Joe’s country, though, since you buy the raw pizza dough there AND the artichoke-lemon pesto from there too. I didn’t even look at what’s contained in the pesto, but I suppose you could try to make your own with some canned, chopped artichoke hearts, some olive oil and lemon juice, maybe lemon zest. It’s kind of thick and goopy, not thin.

Anyway, you pat out the pizza dough first. I learned a really important cooking tip about this – pizza dough is ever so much easier to handle if you pat and spread it out on a Silpat. Wow, what a difference from working at it on a countertop. I put the Silpat right in my big rimmed baking sheet, plopped the dough on it, sat down in front of the TV and worked away at it for about 4-5 minutes maybe, and it was done.

You spread the artichoke pesto mixture on top, then add all the Mozzarella. I used whole milk Mozzarella because that’s what I had in my refrigerator. Certainly makes for a more tasty cheese. Then you add thinly sliced rounds of zucchini and red onion to the top, some grated Parmesan (I used Pecorino, actually), and a bit of dried oregano that I scrunched up between my palms before sprinkling it evenly on the top. I’m sure I used more than 1/2 teaspoon, though. It gets baked at a high temp – 450 – and you want to serve it right out of the oven so the cheese is bubbling hot.

To American tastes, there may not be much difference between focaccia and pizza. But going back in Italian history, focaccia is more like a snack, a bread snack. Often Italians serve it plain, with a dimpled top, sometimes with a light slick of olive oil pooling in the dimples. I well remember walking along a little side street in an Italian beach city, peering in a bakery side window with trays and trays of focaccia just baked. The baker was brushing olive oil all over the dimpled top surface. Oh the aroma was heavenly. But that was really plain – it was just bread, salt and olive oil. No cheese or herbs even. Here we often add toppings to focaccia, so it differs very little from pizza – which I consider more of an entree rather than a snack. So there’s your culinary lesson of the day!
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A year ago: Wednesday Breakfast Scones
Two years ago: Almond Cranberry Cookies

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Lately I’m sounding like a broken record – seems like every recipe is a winner. Five star. This one is no exception. And it’s another one of those recipes that has nothing but ordinary food in it. Italian sausage, onion, garlic, canned tomatoes, broth, canned cannellini beans, orzo, then some fresh basil and Parmesan cheese. With the exception of the beans and orzo, it’s a lot like spaghetti sauce. But don’t forget that anything you make is only as good as the ingredients that go into it. That means, in this case, using good quality Italian sausage. Fresh garlic. Oh yes, there’s a bit of bacon in this too.

It doesn’t take all that long to prepare this soup, either. The recipe is yet another Phillis Carey one. Wow, that gal is one stupendously good cook. I liked this at the cooking class, and liked it almost more so when I made it myself. I used Niman Ranch no-nitrate/nitrite bacon. I used Italian specialty meat market sausage. I used high quality frozen beef broth and some of Penzey’s concentrated pork broth. Trader Joe’s canned beans. Muir Glen fire-roasted canned tomatoes. Real Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese. Fresh basil leaves. I made a double batch – made enough for entertaining friends, and two portions for freezing, and some for another meal this week. If you make this as a main course, you probably won’t get 8 servings. You’ll have no trouble getting rid of it, I guarantee.
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A year ago: Chicken Hamburgese
Two years ago: Heavenly Cream Cheese Brownies (yum, makes my mouth water, guess I need to make these again soon)

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A couple of weeks ago we organized a dinner out with a group of friends. A group that enjoys good food!  And we’d all talked about the movie, Julie & Julia a couple of weeks earlier. At the time we were still living in summer heat, so none of us felt much like making the Beef Bourguignon. So, I called Laurent & Lisa Ferre, the owners of a country French restaurant, The Pleasant Peasant, near the Orange County airport. Our favorite restaurant, as it so happens. It’s a country French bistro, and the prices reflect that country influence. Your dinner bill will not break the bank.

The Pleasant Peasant has been a part of my hubby’s regular routine for about 30 years. Back to when the restaurant first opened. As Dave explains it, as a salesman (he sold computer chips for Intel Corp. for a good part of his career – and he wouldn’t say it, but I will, he was very good at it) he always needed a good restaurant where he was “known.” The kind of eatery where, if he called at 10 on Friday mornings, he could always be assured they’d make a table available for him for lunch. Even if they were full. And, having a discriminating palate, he wasn’t about to make Mimi’s, or Marie Calender’s his go-to restaurant. Heck no. He had an expense account, so usually he could manage going to a nicer, more upscale restaurant. (Can you guess, this was in the 80’s and 90’s.)

The way Dave tells it, if he wanted to take an electronics buyer or a design engineer to lunch, he’d call and leave a voice message, “Meet me for a chicken today?” That was code for – I’ll meet you at the Pleasant Peasant at 11:45 and we’ll share lunch and a half-liter of wine (served in a ceramic chicken).  Now Dave is retired and we mostly go there for dinner, but they’re still open for lunch Monday-Friday.

So we knew when we asked Laurent if he’d prepare Beef Bourguignon for our group, he’d do a stellar job of it. Indeed he did. The French beef stew is not available on their menu, and Laurent shook his head vigorously when I suggested he put it there, especially at the moment because of the popularity of the movie. He says it’s too labor intensive. And perhaps it is, so we were especially happy he’d prepare it for our group. He used his own recipe (probably very similar to Julia Child’s) with carrots, mushrooms and pearl onions. And a roux (butter and flour browned in a heavy skillet, which is not part of Julia’s recipe). Laurent served the beef with just perfectly steamed potatoes, and we had a little bite  of them with every bite of stew. Oh my, yum. Laurent makes his own beef stock, and probably the red wine contributed to its fabulous rich flavor. We all slurped up every bite.

Pictured above – the Meatloaf Wellington, one of my favorite things on the menu. For all dinners, you have a choice of their delicious green salad (with grated carrot and raw beet on top) served always with their French tarragon dressing. The dressing that occasionally I buy from them just because it’s so good. (No, sadly, I don’t have the recipe.) Or their soup of the day, gazpacho or French Onion soup. Good crusty rolls along with pate butter and plain butter are part of the regular menu. The soup or salad is included with every entree.

When Dave and I go there, we order a variety of their menu items – the fabulous Laurent-smoked salmon served with a green bean and salad side (at lunch) or a cold mixed vegetable salad (at dinner). Or one of their on-special fish (halibut, tilapia, sea bass usually) with a variety of French sauces. Or their sand dabs, which is one of the most popular items on their menu. Or the meatloaf Wellington. It’s like a beef Wellington, except Laurent makes a great meatloaf center – I don’t know what he does to that meatloaf but it’s not like any meatloaf I know how to make – it’s richer, less dense somehow – but prepared in the same manner as a fillet mignon version of the Wellington (wrapped in puff pastry). But I also like the chicken too.

The rack of lamb (Dave thinks their lamb racks are the best of any place around). And a lamb shank that’s so tender you can’t believe it.  Salmon sorrel as well. A steak. Sometimes pork is on the menu in a variety of ways. And on rare occasions Laurent makes a pot roast that is better than any pot roast I’ve ever, ever made. If he has it, I always order that. There’s a smattering of pasta too on the menu, and several appetizers (including escargot). Pictured above right, the Rack of Lamb.

Pictured left, the Poulet Champignon, not on the menu, but if you ask, they might make it for you.

A few years ago the restaurant critic at the Los Angeles Times wrote this about The Pleasant Peasant:

“. . . you’ll still find the same honest French cooking Ferre has been doing here all along. Ferre spent five years in the kitchens of Alain Chapel, a three-star Michelin restaurant near Lyons, and many more cooking in his native Brittany. This man isn’t trendy or creative; he’s just a solid craftsman. And his menu is a bargain. No other French restaurant around here gives you such quality for the price as the Pleasant Peasant.”

If you’re interested in dessert, about half the time we splurge and order profiteroles. Now here’s another story – – sorry this post is so long, but there’s a lot to say about the Pleasant Peasant. We’ve been ordering the profiteroles there for years and years and years. You know what they are . . . small cream puffs, top cut off, center removed and filled with rich vanilla ice cream, top replaced, then the whole thing drizzled with Laurent’s uber-rich, silky chocolate sauce. All I know is that he adds a bit of espresso to it and that he uses a good French chocolate. After all these years of going there, that’s all I know. I always wish I could lick the plate. An order of profiteroles is usually four, but if you are very nice, they might give you a smaller order.  They also have other desserts, but for us, there’s nothing else except the profiteroles.

Laurent is French born, from Brittany. He met Lisa when she was doing an internship (hotel & restaurant school at Cal Poly here in California) at a restaurant in Orleans. She brought him home with her when her internship was completed. They married shortly thereafter and have owned the Pleasant Peasant ever since. Laurent cooked under the tutelage of Alain Chapel, a very famous French chef, and that’s why Laurent is able to serve the Lamb Shanks with the Alain Chapel designation. The lamb is a regular on the menu. So, if you go there, be sure to tell them Carolyn & Dave said hello!

The Pleasant Peasant
4251 Martingale Way
Newport Beach, California

Reservations suggested, phone: 949-955-2755

Lunch: Monday-Friday; Dinner: Monday-Saturday (the restaurant is a little hard to find, so you might look it up on a map before you go)

And in case you hadn’t seen Julia Child’s recipe for her Beef Bourguignon, here it is:
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A year ago: Brown Sugar Cake
Two years ago: Leek, Kielbasa & Sausage Soup

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Doesn’t look like all that much, does it? Like maybe vanilla ice cream. But oh, it’s not. Nothing like vanilla. Other than the color. My friend Cherrie brought this a week or so ago when we had the Woodford Pudding. It was just PERFECT with it. You see, the sour cream ice cream, as you might imagine, has a bit of a tangy edge to it, just like the sour cream does. It’s mostly sour cream in the mix, after all. The recipe came from the Food Network, from a Gale Gand show, apparently. It has 4 ingredients: sour cream, half and half, sugar and lemon juice. No eggs, no egg yolks, not even vanilla! No time spent making a custard. If you have a good ice cream machine, you can make this up in no time flat.  You don’t even have to chill the mixture, just whisk it together in a bowl and pour it into the ice cream machine. My thought: this is best served WITH a dessert, not all by itself. Although it’s sweet like ice cream, that sour cream twang might put off some appetites if you ate it solitary. But try it!
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A year ago: Mexican Rice and Chicken Tacos
Two years ago: Grilled Mozzarella Bread Skewers

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Pork tenderloin is a favorite of ours. It’s lean. Tender. Quick to cook. Not as much flavor as some of the more fatty cuts of the pig, but good if prepared correctly (read: not overcooked) and usually with some kind of sauce on top or a salsa/relish on the side.  Phillis Carey prepares it often in her cooking classes. This recipe is a keeper. It meets all the criteria – lean, quick, flavorful, and has a sauce/gravy to go with it. An easy pan sauce using apple cider vinegar and maple syrup.

Soooo, here’s what you do: rub a bunch of Dijon mustard on the pork tenderloin, along with some salt and pepper. Into a hot pan it goes – to brown on as many sides as the tenderloin seems to have. Here’s a picture of that step.

Once browned, insert a meat thermometer in it, kind of angled in so the tip of the point is – hopefully – in the center of the thickest part of the meat. It goes into a very hot (425) oven to roast for a very short time – like 15-20 minutes. Meanwhile get the ingredients together for the sauce – some cider vinegar, more Dijon and some good (real) maple syrup. You remove the pork when it reaches 150 (for pink). If you like it cooked more, then continue until it reaches 155. The meat rests briefly (tented with foil) while you deglaze the pan with the vinegar. Then you add the mustard and maple syrup. Be SURE to use a whisk to break up the mustard – if you don’t you’ll have bunches of cooked clumps of mustard in the sauce. Not good! Slice the meat and drizzle the sauce on top.

My friend Cherrie prepared this dish a few nights ago and she made a couple of changes to the sauce – she added a bit of cream to the sauce and also a touch of arrowroot, which thickened it. I also think that when I make it again – which I will – I’ll make half again more sauce. There wasn’t quite enough, I thought, so I increased it in the recipe below.
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A year ago: Dinner at Bistro 33 near Folsom
Two years ago: Pumpkin Cake in a Mold (pumpkin shape)

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