I’m hoping that you’ve been recording Melissa d’Arabian on her new Food Network show, $10 Dinners. Melissa has just really gotten into the whole TV stuff, with her easy conversation and helpful hints. She makes one dinner for four people for under $10. She relies on us being able to buy most meat on sale. Or produce in season when it’s at its cheapest (like asparagus). But reasonably-priced dinners, nevertheless.

This last weekend she did a dinner of salmon cakes, a creamy orzo risotto, and the asparagus with a lemon vinaigrette. Now, it’s been years since I’ve cooked with canned salmon, but I just happened to have some in my pantry that I’d purchased recently at Costco. They have a stack of 6-ounce cans (6 of them,  I think it was). This recipe requires you to use two of them. These cans are wild salmon to boot, which makes me a happy camper, with my Omega-3’s.

The SECRET to this recipe is the bacon. Oh yes, bacon, bacon, bacon, as the commercial goes. What a difference a bit of bacon goes. I’d never have thought to use it with canned salmon. So that’s why Melissa’s on TV and I’m not!

These salmon cakes aren’t exactly quick – considering that you start with already-cooked salmon. But, it probably doesn’t take more than about 15-20 minutes to get the salmon cakes ready to cook. I made the orzo (also from the show) at the same time, and learned that I needed to have everything all ready to go because once you’re cooking, I felt like a one-armed paper hangar. Also trying to slice a big red tomato and make a caprese salad at the same time.

First you need to cook the onion and bake the potato. I cooked a potato in the microwave oven for about 3 minutes, drained it, then mashed it. Then you start adding the other things. The cooked bacon, the cooked and cooled onion, the egg, mayo, lemon zest, Dijon, and a dusting of sugar (I used Splenda). Then you add the crumbled salmon. It’s a very wet mixture at that point. Meanwhile, you mix up some bread crumbs (I used panko) and grated fresh Parmesan. I probably used more than 2 tablespoons. Very carefully you make small mounds of the salmon mixture into patties and coat them with the panko mixture. They’re quite fragile, so you must be gentle with them. Actually I used less potato than the recipe called for, so that’s likely part of the reason.

I think you can use less vegetable oil to fry these little puppies (the recipe indicated 1/2 cup, or at least 1/4 cup), adding more when you do the 2nd batch. Supposedly the concoction makes 12 small patties. I thought mine were small, and I got 8 out of them. But no matter, two patties was plenty for us as a serving.

The result? Just delicious. I liked them, and so did my DH. I topped them with a cucumber raita (yogurt and chopped cucumber) and we gobbled them right up. And now we have enough for a second dinner. Yes, I’ll be making these again. Maybe not for guests, but certainly for a weeknight dinner!
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A year ago: South Seas Salsa (a Caribbean-type salsa)
Two years ago: BLT Salad (one of our favorites – like the sandwich, but in a salad instead)

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Really, I’ve always liked garbanzo beans (chickpeas). Love them? No. But that was until I tried a recent recipe for them (the utterly unbelievably delicious garbanzo bean salad with Feta and Cilantro, that came from Farmgirl Fare’s blog, and she got it from a book called Falling Cloudberries). So, my antennae are on alert now for anything garbanzo beans. Therefore, when I read this garbanzo bean salad recipe at 5secondrule’s blog, I knew I had to try this one too.

Using canned garbanzo beans makes any chickpea dish easy. I know it’s no trouble to boil beans, for goodness’ sake, but they’re so inexpensive in a can. And the canned ones are at the perfect peak of softness. Or firmness; whatever bite descriptor you prefer! And, I didn’t have to heat up my kitchen. I almost always have canned garbanzos in my pantry, so it was no problem for me to pull out the ingredients for this salad. I had all the ingredients on hand (some Thai red curry sauce, cilantro, fresh mint from the garden, fresh lime juice and fresh tomatoes). Oh yes, some light coconut milk too. Who would think that a garbanzo bean salad would have coconut milk in it. This isn’t a hot dish, but a cold, perfect-for-summer salad. It takes just a few hours of merging the flavors and it’s ready to serve. There is just a hint of heat to this. The original recipe called for Thai red curry paste. I didn’t have that, but did have a bottle of a sauce from Trader Joe’s. I knew it was good because I’ve used it before for something else. I do, now, have a partial jar of red curry sauce in the refrigerator, so will have to figure out what to do with it. Meanwhile, we’ll have eaten up all of this salad in no time. It’s good. It’s a tiny bit spicy. It’s a tiny bit creamy, but you don’t realize there is coconut milk in it. Above all remember that this salad comes together in a jiffy.
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A year ago: Noodles in Jade Sauce
Two years ago: Caramelized Apple Gingerbread

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My friend Norma was in the mood for another soft and smooth kind of dessert, so I turned to one of my ancient cookbooks with Jell-O kinds of recipes in it. Sure enough, this one sounded good to her and good to me, too. It was very, very easy, although I dirtied up a bunch of mixing bowls in the making.

Back in the olden days – we’re talking the 1940’s and 50’s – buying a half pint of whipping cream was a big deal – meaning it was expensive and just not sensible in those frugal times. My mother certainly didn’t buy it. Somebody figured out that you could whip evaporated (canned) milk and it tasted somewhat like whipped cream if you mixed it with other things. If you whipped up partially-set Jell-O, you could combine them and make a frothy light dessert. This just has the addition of a chocolate cookie crumb crust (and some sprinkled on top too) with added sugar and lime juice. That’s it. See, I said it was easy. You probably could make this in a chocolate crumb pie crust (ready-made), in which case you’d likely need at least 2 of them (that’s a guess). In a 9×13 pan, it would generously serve 12 people. Do note the low fat in this (9 grams per serving) and relatively low calorie too (249 per serving).

It’s a refreshing dessert for a hot, summer evening. Once it chills and sets completely, you cut it in squares to serve it. Garnish with some chocolate curls if you’d like it to look a bit more elegant. With each bite, dip down and get some of the cookie crumbs – the sweetness is there, rather than in the whipped Jell-O, even though there is sugar in both the gelatin and the recipe calls for another cup of sugar to be added, but the frothy filling doesn’t taste all that sweet. Next time I think I’d substitute a large tub of Cool-Whip instead of the evaporated milk. It’s be easier, and maybe more tasty too. I liked this – so don’t get me wrong when I say that there was one thing I didn’t like – the filling was too much like foam, rather than substantive. That’s why I’d try the Cool-Whip. The lime and chocolate combination is surprisingly tasty. I wouldn’t have thought to pair them. Anyway, it’s a fun dessert and definitely retro.
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A year ago: Peanut Butter Pinwheel Cookies
Two years ago: North African Grilled Corn on the Cob

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Sugar snaps are a regular in my veggie drawer. Normally I add them raw, to salads, or nibble on them as a healthy snack. I forget that they can also be a side vegetable – served hot. The other night when I made Mongolian Pork Chops, I decided to spice up a big pan full of sugar snaps and mushrooms to serve along with it. This is SO easy, it’s hardly worth creating an actual recipe. It’s nothing but sugar snaps, some sliced mushrooms, a little bit of butter, some rice wine vinegar (seasoned type) and a tiny dribble of dark sesame oil. And a sprinkling of salt and pepper. I know, you ask, butter is not used in Asian cuisine, but I heard a quote from Wolfgang Puck today – he was preparing Asian lobster, and he added butter. His explanation – he said “I’m not Asian, so I can add butter.” Sounds good to me! If you prefer, you can substitute extra virgin olive oil.

We served these to guests two nights in a row and they were heartily devoured. The few leftovers we had were grabbed up the next day by me. Cold. Right out of the plastic baggie I’d put them in.

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A year ago: Asian Baby Back Ribs
Two years ago: (EASY) Pasta with Tomato Cream Sauce

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As I was starting to work on this post, Dave walked by me here in the kitchen, and said, “tell them DH says [see, he even knows his nickname] this is great, and it would even be good as a complete meal.” Yup. I agree. But then I’d have eaten way too much of this, and it’s not exactly low calorie. So maybe I should stick with just a serving and enjoy it twice.

We had meatloaf with it. We’ve had a catastrophe (a refrigeration type) here at our house, that, as I write this, isn’t yet rectified. A 10-month old Kenmore refrigerator/freezer quit freezing. The refrigerator part works fine. Just the freezer went on the fritz. Everything in the freezer was defrosted. This unit lives in our garage. About $200+ worth of frozen meats (mostly) that lives in that freezer had all reached 32 degrees. I discovered it nearly 10 days ago. A quick trip to a local grocery store to buy dry ice at least kept the worst scenario from happening. The next day I was on the phone to Sears about our 1-year warranty. They informed us that they couldn’t get here for 11 days. ELEVEN DAYS! I said. What do you mean, eleven days? I have hundreds of dollars worth of meat that’s going to go bad. This is under warranty. You can’t do this. You know, yada yada. They had no sympathy. I escalated my request to a supervisor. I don’t know what country the Sears customer service people are from, but I had a very hard time understanding every person I spoke to. After all the ranting and raving, we’re right back to where we were – 11 days wait.

So, every day or two my DH, bless him, has been making a trek to the grocery store for more blocks of dry ice. As I write this we’ve spent well over $100 on dry ice to keep the entire lot from defrosting again. We have no idea whether they’ll even have the part that will be required to repair it. Truly I don’t know what I’ll do if they tell us we’ll have to wait for them to ship replacement parts. Maybe I can take them to small claims court. You think? For the cost of all the dry ice. Think I’d win? I can tell you for sure I’m never – EVER – buying another appliance from Sears. Period.

So anyway, I had to move as much of the frozen stuff as I could into our kitchen freezer. Which is huge. But full. I decided to start SERIOUSLY using some of the frozen meats. So far we’ve had 2 packages of pork chops, 4 packages of chicken breasts. Some breakfast sausages, and tonight we devoured some meatloaf that I’d made a year ago into serving sized “loaves.” So I’m working on it.

The weather here is stinkin’ hot. There’s no other word for it – it’s dreadfully hot. So a comfort meal of hot meatloaf and a hot veg didn’t exactly appeal. But it’s what we had ready to fix. It was so hot we had to eat dinner in the house in the A/C. It was close to 100 today. I probably won’t post this story until next week. I’ve got too many stories lined up. A good thing, really.

So, back to cauliflower. I remembered I’d saved a cauliflower recipe recently but had to find it. Why or how I ever even GOT this recipe baffles me. I had the web link in my recipe software – from a radio station in New Zealand. Huh? Why was I looking at recipes online at a radio station in New Zealand, I ask you? Guess I’ll never know. Someone must have mentioned it. I do read a couple of bloggers from down under. Anyway, the author must be a chef somewhere there.

Basically this is steamed cauliflower covered in a cheesy cream sauce and topped with some pan-sautéed bread crumbs and parsley. The latter absolutely MADE the dish, so don’t get lazy and not make that part. They provide some lovely crunch to it. But they won’t be crunchy on leftovers since they absorb too much moisture. I used a whole passel of pots and pans to make this (too many, really, but it turned out to be worth it). My DH can tell you all about that since he washed them all for me. I’m SO lucky to have a hubby who likes to wash dishes!

You could certainly steam the cauliflower ahead (and reheat it), make the cheese sauce ahead (and reheat it). You just pour the hot sauce over the hot cauliflower, sprinkle on a bit more grated cheese and the crispy crumbs. I’ll definitely make this again. Delicious!

First I started out with the hot steamed cauliflower. I poured the florets into a bowl just large enough to contain them.

I’d already made the cream sauce: An onion (halved) goes into the pan with milk, plus garlic cloves, bay leaf and whole peppercorns. That’s simmered awhile. Strain out the onion and spices. Then you make the actual cream sauce with some butter and flour, adding in the strained milk. The grated cheddar cheese went in after the sauce was thickened and as soon as it melted (off heat) it was poured over the cauliflower.

Then you sprinkle the reserved cheese over the top and it melts almost immediately. Salt and pepper it lightly.

The parsley breadcrumbs were made in a separate pan, sautéed with a bit of butter until they turned crispy brown. Oh are they ever yummy. Sprinkle them all over the top and serve absolutely immediately. To raves.
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A year ago: Peach Galette
Two years ago: Southwest Eggs Benedict

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It’s been several months since I’ve made any cookies. My friend Norma hasn’t been able to eat cookies for several months, and I had successfully convinced myself that I didn’t need to eat any if I wasn’t giving more than half of them to her! But we were having guests for dinner, and banana gelato was on the menu. I needed a cute cookie to stick in the top.

I have a copy of Martha Stewart’s newest cookie book, appropriately named ‘>Martha Stewart’s Cookies. What’s unique about this cookie cookbook is how it’s divided into chapters. There’s one for Light & Delicate; another for Soft & Chewy; yet another for Crumbly & Sandy; and Chunky & Nutty; also Cakey & Tender; and Crispy & Crunchy; and lastly Rich & Dense. This recipe came from the Crispy & Crunchy chapter. At the beginning (the table of contents, if you will) are pages (with the above titles) with photographs of each and every cookie. It makes deciding on a cookie SO much easier. You don’t have to read the recipe, or flip through dozens of pages to find pictures. You can see on just 8-10 pages at the beginning exactly what each cookie looks like. There’s a picture of two of the pages from the Soft & Chewy section. Don’t want a sandwich cookie? No problem, you can gloss right over those. Anyway, it’s a cool method. I’ve had 2 or 3 cookies from this cookbook so far, and have been very pleased.

Perhaps I’ve mentioned it here before, but I have a real lack of willpower when it comes to cookie dough – eating it straight out of the mixing bowl. My favorite is chocolate chip. But this one, oooh, I’ll admit, this cookie dough was mighty tasty. From the brown sugar that sweetens them, plus the delicious spices throughout (cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, cloves). I licked the spoon and promptly put all the prep parts in the dishwasher so I wouldn’t be tempted to continue searching for smidgens of batter somewhere.

Once you mix up the dough, you pack it into two smaller sized loaf pans (lined with plastic wrap), gently press it down evenly, fold over the wrap to seal it up and put them in the freezer overnight. Here’s what the pans looked like, at right.

After freezing them overnight, let them sit out for about 10 minutes so the dough is a bit easier to cut, then use a sharp knife to cut thin, thin slices. 36 of them out of each little loaf. They go onto Silpat-lined baking sheets, are stuck with a few sliced almonds and baked. That’s it. VERY easy.

The cutting and slicing is a bit tricky. Doesn’t matter a bit as far as the taste is concerned, but it’s difficult to cut even slices. Leaving the frozen dough out that 10 minutes does help a lot, though.

My cookies were not as perfect looking as in the Martha Stewart style. Now that I know more about the difficulty in slicing them evenly, I’ll hopefully do better on the next batch. Yes, there will be a next batch. These are good – would be especially good for Christmas.
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Last night we had some friends, Bob & Peggy, over for dinner. Bob is recovering from open heart surgery, but after just two weeks he felt up to coming to our house for dinner. Bless his heart! They have minimal air conditioning at their house, so I was grateful they’d come here, rather than me needing to package up everything  (hot) and take it to their house. Their kitchen is not air conditioned. Peggy said, don’t go to too much work. So instead of finding all kinds of new recipes, I decided to use some old tried-and-true ones.

No special appetizers – just some tortilla chips and a cheese dip. I did make a garbanzo bean salad that I read about yesterday on somebody else’s blog (I’ll write that up as a separate post, though). I had some meatloaf frozen which became the main dish of the meal. But instead of spreading it with my usual sweet and sour sauce, I decided to dig out the recipe for Red Peppers for Cold Meat that I wrote up last year. Perfect for a spoon full on top and along side a baby meatloaf. Then I made a watermelon salad that’s so refreshing in this hot-hot weather. And an old family standby, a chocolate cake from a mix. So here’s what I made:

Meatloaf – last time I made meatloaf, I froze them in individual portions (about 4 inches by 1 1/2 inches by 1 1/2 inches. Not only do they defrost a bit easier, but they take a lot less time to bake too. I used my old favorite, the meatloaf mixture only from my Sweet & Sour Meatloaf.

Red Peppers for Cold Meats – well, I’d used it before as a relish for baked meatloaf, and knew it tasted great. This time I had less red bell peppers, but I had a poblano/pasilla chile, so added that to the mixture. This time I used more onion too. The preparation of it is certainly flexible. It keeps for a long time in the refrigerator.

Minted Watermelon & Feta Salad – this pairing is a match made in heaven. If you haven’t ever tried it, well, you’re missing something special. I was ever-so skeptical before tasting it the first time over a year ago, but now I’m a true convert. Especially when watermelons are in season (now). There is a Tomato & Watermelon Salad too, with red onion, but this one is a Martha Stewart recipe. I made it with watermelon, feta and mint since I had ample tomatoes in the red pepper mixture and in the garbanzo salad too.

Garbanzo Bean Salad with Thai Curry Sauce – Ever so easy to do. Couldn’t believe how easy. Uses canned chickpeas and bottled Thai red curry paste/sauce and coconut milk. Yes, this really is a cold salad. And extra delicious. Stay tuned in a few days for that recipe.

German Chocolate Chip Cake – this is an old family standby that normally uses a German chocolate cake mix. I didn’t have one, so used a regular chocolate cake mix instead. It’s so simple – spread the cake batter in a 9×13 pan, sprinkle it with sugar, cinnamon, walnuts and about 2/3 cup of chocolate chips. Bake as usual. Some of the nuts and chips sink down into the cake; some stay on top. And the sugar/cinnamon mixture gives the cake a finished look without making frosting. Especially good with vanilla ice cream. I didn’t have any, so I used whipped cream instead.

A year ago: Feta Tomato Gratin (easy appetizer)

Two years ago: Apple Cherry Walnut Green Salad

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I don’t know about you, but I have a pantry with any number of little jars of “odd things.” Mostly they’re condiments, or other miscellaneous items that don’t exactly fit in the shelving category of canned vegetables, or canned fruit, or canned meat. One of my shelves does hold mostly the fruit/dessert type of stuff: evaporated milk, condensed milk, canned fruit of several varieties, honey, and almond paste.

Then there’s the veggie shelf with mostly beans and corn. I use very few canned vegetables other than those. Oh, canned tomatoes. There are a LOT  of those, since I use them in soups, stews, etc. Even though tomatoes are a fruit, we certainly don’t eat them like they are, so they go on the veggie shelf.

There’s also a shelf for canned meat – mostly tuna and chicken. Some smoked albacore, some canned salmon too. I also have a shelf of jams, jellies, apple butter and those kinds of items. They probably ought to be over on the fruit/dessert shelf. But oh well, they’re not. And then I have two shelves, actually of things that don’t fit any of those categories. Things like canned red peppers. I don’t use those as a vegetable, so they don’t go on the veggie shelf. Canned eggplant caponata. Marinated artichoke hearts. Some kind of powdered onion dip I bought 10 years ago, and have never opened. A jar of small pickled green tomatoes. Sun dried tomato tapenade. Preserved Meyer lemon rosemary marinade. Cranberry sauce. Cocktail sauce. And a pear topping for soft cheese. See, all those kinds of things are mostly appetizers, so I guess in my weird brain, I lump them together. I buy them, and promptly forget they’re there. When I’m planning a company dinner, I rarely even LOOK there to see if I have something I can use. Big wrong.

But this time I was eyeballing these two cute little jars given to me by my friend Darlene. She and her husband went to Italy a couple of years ago and she bought these little darlings there. They’re caramelized onions and a fig compote. So how could I use them? Since I had some Belgian Endive in the refrigerator, I decided to create an appetizer with them.

Here’s all I did: I used a small spoon and laid down a small strip of the caramelized onion, then a small strip of the fig salsa, right next to the onion. Then I crumbled (or sliced) a tiny piece of goat cheese or blue cheese and put that on top. A little sprinkling of finely minced Italian parsley on top and I was done. Not like an appetizer with bread or crackers (well, I served those too) but this would certainly be healthier for us. I just used the Belgian Endive as the “boat” to contain the items. They made for very easy finger food as we and our guests sat out on our patio. So how were they? Very good. The savory (the onions) and the sweet (the figs) was complemented by the cheese (goat or blue).  I actually preferred the goat cheese, but both tasted good. The next time I made them I had some fresh figs, so I didn’t use the fig jam, but a quarter of a fig. I think those were even better. But then, fig season is short. Now.

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A year ago: Lamb Shepherd’s Pie
Two years ago: Normandy Apricot Custard (a veddy-veddy French dessert using fresh apricots)

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Here on this blog I’ve talked about Cindy Pawlcyn before. She’s the famous chef from Mustard’s Grill in Yountville. And Cindy’s Backstreet Kitchen in St. Helena. I wrote up a restaurant review of the latter, back in 2007 after my friend Cherrie and I ate there. My friend Linda gave me the ‘>Mustard’s Grill cookbook a couple of years ago. I’ve not made very many dishes from it (don’t know if I’ve even written up a single one), but Linda has been telling me that I needed to try the Mongolian Pork Chops. Finally, I did. They’re really good. Not too spicy hot – just seasoned highly with Asian condiments. According to the recipe in the cookbook, this is one of the menu favorites at the restaurant.

We used the last of our precious 4-H pig pork chops (the Berkshire pig we bought last summer) for this. They were oh-so tender. I had bone-in chops, not boneless, as you can see from the photo above. You can use either one, although the original recommends bone-in, exactly 1-inch thick.

You prepare a marinade that contains a lot of hoisin sauce (more of that than anything else), plus a tad of sugar, soy sauce, sherry vinegar, rice wine vinegar, a scallion, some hot sauce, black bean chile sauce, fresh ginger, fresh garlic, and some cilantro (including some chopped stems). The pork is marinated in that mixture for at least 3 hours, or overnight (overnight is better), then grilled briefly to get grill marks, then slowly cooked to 139 degrees (still slightly pink in the middle).

To accompany this I sautéed some sugar snap peas and mushrooms in a little butter, then during the last minute of cooking I added some rice wine vinegar (about a tablespoon) and a very small splash of dark sesame oil.  The mixture gave the sugar snaps a little Asian twist.
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A year ago: Chocolate Spice Cupcakes
Two years ago: Spicy Garlic Cashew Chicken (oh yes, EVER so good)

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It may be a long time since I’d made this – as long as 14 years ago. On the day that our daughter, Dana, was married in our backyard. About 50 people were invited and having a catered lunch was just not in the cards. So I elicited help from family and friends to help with the last-minute food prep to serve a nice lunch buffet. I served a Cornish game hen salad that had been a favorite (still is), and this salad. In this dish we covered salad and carbs all in one.

Once Dana & Todd said their vows, we served shrimp & avocado salsa to keep everyone’s tummies under control. It was a very, very hot September day. My treasured punch bowl broke when we served the punch – I’d placed the bowl on a table outside and it sat in the sun for about 4-5 minutes before I poured the iced punch into the bowl. I heard the crack. And shortly thereafter, all the punch dribbled out the bottom of the bowl, all over the tablecloth and all over the patio. Sigh. I’ve never replaced the punch bowl. Thought about it, but haven’t.

Ideally this dish is made with red-skinned potatoes, but I had some of those new baby potatoes on hand – they’re called “teeny tiny potatoes.” The recipe came from Bon Appétit, way back in 1994. The recipe is available online, and some people who made it thought the dressing was too heavy and oily. Indeed, if you poured all the dressing onto the potatoes it might be – but I never have. I always have dressing left over, so keep that in mind. I’ve added another tablespoon of vinegar to the mix – I like it better myself.

A secret, if there is one, to this recipe is pouring apple cider vinegar over the hot potatoes. As with many absorbent carbs (like beans and potatoes), they benefit from a lot of acid. I have a sensational bean salad that I make that has almost no oil in it – all vinegar. The beans soak up the acid, and somehow the starch in the bean just neutralizes the vinegar. Don’t know how or why that works, but it does. This recipe works much the same way. You can leave the potatoes out at room temp for up to 4 hours, so it’s just a matter of making the Romaine salad part, tossing dressing on the potatoes, spreading them on top of the salad, then sprinkling capers on top.

I had leftovers after serving this, so I removed the Romaine and saved the all-dressed potatoes. The next night I made a more traditional green salad (Romaine, radishes, red cabbage only) and piled the potatoes on top. I also dressed the entire salad with the Dijon dressing too. I liked it better.

You can prepare the dressing up to a day ahead; just bring it to room temp before tossing it on the potatoes. I like this dish because it covers both salad and carbs – all in one. The dressing is a mustard-rich one – you definitely can taste more than a hint of the mustard. If you don’t like mustard, tone it down a bit. This salad can be taken to a picnic. Is great for a hot summer night.
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A year ago: Cornish Game Hen Salad
Two years ago: Sicilian Tuna Salad

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