Certainly I’ve admitted here before that pie crusts (at one time) were not my favorite thing. Well, to eat them was fine. To make, well, sometimes was iffy. Not anymore. But therein lies a story:

My mother, a real pie crust expert, only made the old-fashioned kind of Crisco (shortening) type. Even as a child I marveled at her ability to whip up a pie in nothing flat. She would combine the crust ingredients in a bowl, cut in the shortening, then sprinkle in the ice water. She’d mix and form it into a mound, flatten it a bit then start rolling. In about 8 rolls she’d have a perfectly round piecrust which she’d very easily pick up and lay into a pie plate. There were NO cracks. No dry edges. No thin parts either. If there were scraps, she’d put those on a separate baking sheet and spread with a little margarine, sugar and cinnamon and bake those for us to nibble on.

Therefore, I grew up thinking making and rolling pie crusts was easy. So one time, probably when I was about 12-14 I’d guess, I asked my mom if I could make the crust this time. She said “sure.” With her next to me, I did everything she told me to do (use ice water, handle it as little as possible, roll gently, don’t roll all the way to the edges, turn, sprinkle the surface with a bit of flour, but not too much, turn and roll some more).  With the kind of impatience I likely had, I did manage to get it into a ball, flatten it some and started rolling it out. I’m sure I was more interested in the rolling of it than the making of it. But anyway, you can guess from the tenor of this post that all did NOT go well. It stuck to the board, big time. It was lopsided. It was thin in places. It cracked right through the middle. When I tried to transfer it (after my mother had helped me patch it in several places) it completely fell apart. I was nearly in tears.

It’s likely I’d already manhandled it too much. My mother wrapped the dough in a ball and refrigerated it for 15 minutes and I tried again. Same thing happened. I think I walked away from piecrusts at that point, rarely to return. I watched my mother make them after that, but was never willing (or interested) to try it again.

When I first became a bride in 1962, I was a real novice cook. Living in a small cottage in Florida at one point, I decided to tackle another pie crust. You’ll laugh at this scene: I didn’t own a pie plate. With all the lovely wedding gifts I received, nary a pie plate. But I had a thin aluminum cake pan (nonstick didn’t exist back then), so I figured, oh well, I could make the pie in a cake pan. Sure thing. I thought. (Note to any new cooks here: don’t do it.) I managed to make the shortening pie crust somehow, patching it in a dozen places. Had a very hard time getting the crust to hold on the cake pan edge, of course. Pie crusts aren’t meant to hold onto a vertical surface. Anyway, I think it was a cherry pie made from the Joy of Cooking (a wedding gift). The dark and gloomy kitchen had a 2-burner stove and a small oven in it. It was difficult to see anything, but within about 20 minutes I knew something was wrong because I could hear some hissing coming from the oven. I could hardly see into the dark oven interior, but as soon as I opened the oven door smoke was pouring out. The pie had overflowed and was dripping all over the oven floor. Not knowing what to do, I just let it do its thing. The crust obviously wasn’t done. Well, the pie tasted okay, I guess, but it was hardly a pie. It was nary impossible to get the crust out of the pan because some of the filling had leaked through the crust and caramelized on the aluminum surface. Plus all the globs of sugary filling had dripped all over the oven. What a mess to clean. I’d never had to use oven cleaner (this was long before self-cleaning ovens). So can you see why I walked away from pie crusts? Yup. I did. For years and years and years.

My epiphany came probably 20 years later (can you imagine, I didn’t make a pie in all those years unless I could buy the ready-made shell!) I attended a cooking class where the instructor made quiche Lorraine. And she used a pie crust recipe from ‘>’>The Silver Palate Cookbook. As she whizzed up the crust ingredients in the food processor (BUTTER – oh my goodness BUTTER) it came together in a flash. She chilled it briefly and literally rolled it to soft perfection. Into the pie plate it went and any cracks were easily fixed. The butter gave the dough a softness that not only allows easy handling, but simple repairs as well.

My first butter pie crust was a resounding success. It was tender and flaky. It stood up around the edges (in a pie plate, of course!). Nothing leaked through the crust. It looked pretty. It tasted great. My guests thought I knew how to make a pie crust. Since then, I’ve never wavered from making a butter crust. A few have worked better than others, and I’m always open to some new combination, as long as butter is in the mix.

With a new cookbook at hand (a gift from my friend Cherrie, for my birthday), ‘>’>The Art and Soul of Baking (Mushet, 2009), I decided to try their version of a rich pastry crust. It’s very similar to many others (one cube of butter to 1 1/4 cups of flour). This one also had egg yolks (2) in it, which made it even more rich. But it worked like a charm. Probably the flakiest pastry I’ve ever made. It was mixed in the food processor. It was still cool enough from the cold butter and ice water, that I was able to roll it out immediately. I think I needed just a tiny half teaspoon more water in the mix (in the photo above you can see the raw pastry has a few dry edges). But, it went into the pan just fine.

The joy of this kind of pie crust is that it can be pressed, by hand, into the pie plate too, rather than using a rolling pin. So if you are pie crust challenged, or don’t own a rolling pin, by all means, just use your hands and press it in, starting in the middle. Put clumps of dough in the bottom of the pie plate and then start pressing toward the outside edges and up the sides. The recipe had ample quantity, so I didn’t lack for enough dough to put on a nice crimped edge.

When I made the Tomato Pie, it required a partially baked crust. So, I put long strips of waxed paper in the middle of the raw shell and added pie weights. And pushed them as much as possible UP the sides so the top edges would stay in place. I use two sheets of waxed paper in the raw shell. I do trim down the corners that stick up (so they don’t come in contact with the heating elements), but not too much. I also discovered early on, that when you try to remove the pie weights by grabbing the waxed paper, you’ve got to have enough edges to pick up the whole thing.

There’s the raw shell with the pie weights. Carefully move them around so more of the weights are up the sides, as I said. Once the shell is partially baked, you let it cool for a couple of minutes. Have a heatproof bowl nearby, then very gently and very carefully pick up opposite sides of both sheets of waxed paper, lift and pour the pie weights into the bowl. (You may need to wash the pie weights – for sure you will if you only use one thickness of waxed paper – with two thickness, probably not.) Allow the pie weights to completely cool before returning them to a storage container (I use a quart sized freezer bag).

So there’s my pie crust story, and I’m sticking to it – the butter pastry, that is. Below is the finished pie. Isn’t this pretty? If you didn’t already print out the tomato pie recipe, be sure to try it. With the buttery flaky pie shell, it’s sublime. For a PDF of the shell, see bottom of recipe.

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A year ago: White Sangria
Two years ago: Italian Bragiole (a stuffed steak)

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If you have tomatoes accumulating at a rapid rate at your house, oh, do I have a recipe for you today. To say this pie is delicious is a gross understatement. It’s not my recipe – it’s Elise’s, over at Simply Recipes. She got it from an acquaintance. And what a winner it is. The words of wisdom here are: sometimes the simplest of recipes are the best. This pie is nothing fancy – it contains onions, lots of tomatoes, fresh basil, cheese, mayo and some hot sauce. All piled into a pie shell in layers. And just so you know:

This recipe contains fat in the pie crust.

This recipe contains cheese (uh, yea, calories and fat)

This recipe contains mayonnaise (3/4 cup for the whole pie).

Other than that, it’s good for you  – nice chunks of tomatoes. (BG).

I’m going to write up a separate post about the pie shell (otherwise this post would be pages and pages long). So here we’ll just talk about the pie itself. I started off with a mixture of tomatoes (red and yellow heirlooms plus a small pile of smaller tomatoes right out of our garden. The heirlooms were very moist – VERY juicy. And that can be the slight undoing of this recipe – you’ve just got to get out as much of the liquid as possible. It’s not that the pie won’t be good, but the bottom shell will be soggy (as mine was). But I have a “fix” for it – next time I’ll add an extra step. More on that later.

Obviously, first you have to make a pie shell. We couldn’t find any refrigerated pie shells in our local stores, so with barely enough time, I made a crust myself. It was a very buttery savory shell. Flaky beyond belief. It was blind baked (about 20 minutes at 350) first. Meanwhile, I started in on the filling.

First went in the chopped raw red onions. Next time I’d chop them up finer AND I’d cook them a bit. The onions were still crunchy when we ate the tart after 40 minutes of baking.

Next went in the chopped tomatoes that I’d drained on paper towels for about 15 minutes, AND I squeezed them to get out even more juice. I used about 3 1/2 cups for my large 9-inch pie plate.

Then I sprinkled in about 1/4 cup of fresh sliced basil leaves from our garden.

Next I mixed up an equal quantity (approximately) of shredded Gruyere cheese and mozzarella (not fresh), along with some bottled mayonnaise and a dash of hot sauce. Using my hands I pressed the cheesy clumps all over the top of the pie. I didn’t mash it down or try to make it a solid layer – there were a few holes. But they all disappeared during baking. Bake for 25-40 minutes or so until the top is golden brown.

There it is, in all its gloriousness just out of the oven. We took it to our kids’ house and had it with some grilled Italian sausages and a delicious field greens salad topped with more garden-grown sliced tomatoes. The pie sat out for about an hour (uncovered in the trunk of the car for the 30-minute ride) and it was still nice and warm in the middle when it was served soon thereafter. Definitely eat it warm or hot. Next time I make this I’ll add a thin layer of cream cheese over the pastry – to keep the juice from waterlogging the pie shell. And a word of caution: Gruyere is what I used here – it was beyond wonderful – but it’s a very salty cheese, so I might not add any additional salt. Mozzarella can also be very salty too.

The result? Oh gosh. Juicy. Creamy. Cheesy. Flaky. Tomatoey. All over perfection. I’m writing this as we just had a tiny wedge as leftovers. I heated it in the microwave and it was just SO SO good. Can’t wait to have an occasion to make it again – before all the tomatoes are gone for the season.
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A year ago: Restaurant review of the Posh Peasant in San Clemente
Two years ago: Goat Cheese with Apricot Chutney

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Oh my goodness gracious, was this ever good. Confession time here: I don’t know if I’ve ever made a plum cobbler. But this recipe may be the first, last and the only recipe I’ll ever use. I’d done a google search for plum recipes, went to the first result from plumrecipes.net and when I saw this title, well, that was all it took. I had about 8 really large California plums that needed to be eaten or used somehow. The recipe calls for 2 1/2 pounds – that was exactly what I had. If you have small plums, you’d best weigh them to make sure you have sufficient. This recipe could surely be halved easily enough, although half an egg is a bit of a problem!

The pitted and quartered plums are mixed in a bowl with some brown sugar, cornstarch, cinnamon and lemon juice (I used lime, cuz that’s what I had). You pour them out into a baking dish (shallow, not deep). A few little bits of butter are dotted on the top. Then you mix in the processor some sugar (I used half Splenda), flour, baking powder, salt and almonds; then you add one egg and mix that. The mixture is gently sprinkled over the top of the plums. Gently pull a few of the plum quarters up, so a few of the ends are peeking through the streusel. A few more almonds are added to the top and the dish is baked for 45 minutes. Here’s what it looked like fresh out of the oven:

So, the prep probably took about 15 minutes max, baking was 45, and we were able to have a little scoop of it about 20 minutes later, with a little glug of heavy cream poured around it. Highly recommended!
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A year ago: Tomato Salad with Goat Cheese
Two years ago: Asparagus with Chile Butter

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Pork tenderloin is such a versatile meat. But it can also be very tricky – cook it even a degree or two past perfection and it’s dry and leathery. Even with my meat thermometer I let this one slip by – I forgot to set the alarm on the thermometer so the interior meat temp got to 149 (instead of 145) before I removed it from the oven. But it was still on the juicy side, though no longer pink in the middle, so it ended up tasting fine. Especially if you serve it with this delicious black bean salsa under and over it.

No printed recipe was involved here – I just decided I wanted to pan fry/brown the meat after marinating in lemon juice and oil, plus some oregano. Then I made the salsa with the rinsed and drained black beans, fresh tomato, red bells, onions, a bit of fresh corn off the cob, some pasilla chiles minced up (or use jalapeno) with some lemon juice (no oil in this at all) with some cilantro, dill, chipotle chile, cumin and some bottled chile powder, plus salt and pepper and a tiny sprinkling of sugar. I probably could have made my meal with just this salad/salsa and not missed the meat. But with the meat, it was a complete meal. I did serve some steamed broccoli on the side, but it was almost superfluous.

This was easy – marinate the meat overnight if you have time, whip together the salsa, then brown the meat and stick the whole pan in the oven to bake for just a VERY FEW minutes until it reaches perfect temp. Tent it with foil briefly, then slice on the diagonal and serve on a bed of the salsa. Done.

If you would like to stretch out the amount of meat here, just make more of the black bean salsa and serve fewer pieces of meat. I got 4 servings from one pork tenderloin with this recipe. Do try this, though – it’s worth making.
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A year ago: Tomatoes (everything you need to know about them)
Two years ago: Chipotle Meatballs

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With a half flat of fresh, ripe nectarines, I offered to take dessert to our kids the other night. We had this a year or two ago when we were invited to some friends (Sandy & Bob’s) house for dinner one hot summer night. What I liked about it was that the dessert was minimally sweet. Better for us. And I like the sweet-tart taste.

Since we’re fans of Fage Greek yogurt, I decided to alter this recipe so I could include it, rather than the pre-packaged, sweetened cups of fruit-flavored yogurt, which I don’t like. It’s too sweet, and the yogurt is too thin. Fage does make a few types of fruit yogurt, but I didn’t opt to go that direction, knowing I could substitute.

The original recipe calls for a graham cracker crust, which is what I made. Sandy used ginger snaps (which was extra delicious). I had graham crackers on hand, so used those. I had 3 bricks of cream cheese (2 full fat, 1 low fat), and I had the fresh nectarines.

This pie/torte is really VERY easy to make. Took me less time than I thought, once you have all the ingredients ready to go. I used a combination of Fage fat free and full fat yogurt. I added some stone fruit jam in lieu of the peach-flavored yogurt. I didn’t add any Splenda or sugar in the cheesecake mixture, but I decided afterwards that I should have, so I’ve changed the recipe below to include it. It was sweet enough, barely, but I think most people would prefer it just a bit sweeter.

The recipe is supposed to be made in a spring form pan, and there’s a reason for that. The filling is very goopy, because it’s not baked. It even has 1 1/2 packages of gelatin in it, but it was still a bit difficult to cut. There’s also a reason it’s supposed to chill for 24 hours – to make it easier to slice. I recommend you use two spatulas – one to use under the slice and the other one to help separate the slice from the next slice. Making it in a spring form pan allows you to get a flat pie wedge into and underneath each slice. The luscious, dripping nectarines were sublime on the top. They added sweetness, of course, but it was still a bit on the light side of sweet. Taste the filling – add more sugar if you want. It tasted sweet enough to me, but when it was served it seemed too tart. So, as I say, more sugar is in the recipe below. I made this in a 9-inch tall pie pan, and wouldn’t do that again – it really should be in the spring form. So do as I say, not as I did. Okay? I’ve also increased the amount of almond extract. The almonds sprinkled on top add a nice texture change. I dashed a bit of cinnamon on top just because I thought it would look pretty. No question, this pie/cheesecake is beautiful. And good tasting too.
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A year ago: A fun graphic from wordle.net
Two years ago: Schnecken Rolls

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Really, these reality shows aren’t my cup of tea. None of them have “done” much for me. With the exception of the “Next Food Network Star.” In case you haven’t seen it, or heard about it, each year the Food Network narrows down thousands of contestants who want to have a regular half-hour show on the network. They start with about 12 people, I think, at the beginning of the TV competition. For a series of weeks (probably 2-3 weeks altogether in real time) the Food Network gives these people some tough challenges. This isn’t like Iron Chef (which I don’t watch). Nothing is beyond reach, but some challenges are harder than others. They move them to different venues, they give them difficult foods, tight timeframes, they make them work in teams (which doesn’t always turn out well), and each week they eliminate one person.

From the first show this season, I was rooting for Melissa d’Arabian. She’s charming. She’s cute. She’s informative. And she’s a home cook with no formal culinary training. Plus she’s the mother of 3 very young children. And she won. I’m just so excited for her. I thought she did a stellar job all the way through the weeks of competitions. She held her cool, she learned well, and she offered a lot of good ideas. She did her first 30-minute program the same week she won, and already she’s started a series of Saturday noontime programs. The very first recipe sounded great (it was) and it looked very easy (yes, it was that too). With chicken breasts at hand, I made this entree in about 30 minutes from start to finish. With a small caprese salad on the side, that was dinner.

She sliced chicken breasts in half, horizontally. I just cut them in half and pounded each piece to make thinner ones. After sprinkling them with salt and pepper with some dried thyme, you coat the pieces with plain flour, then pan fry them in olive oil. Once they’re cooked through (probably takes about 5 minutes total) you remove the chicken, then sauté the onion (I only had a sweet onion, not the red onion Melissa suggested) and more thyme, then you add chicken broth, a little white wine and the juice of 3 lemons. Meanwhile, you cook up some spinach (fresh, or frozen if you’re in a bind for fresh). The broth and onion mixture cooks down some, you add a little bit of butter to it off heat then serve: first you make a “bed” of spinach, place the chicken on top, then the onions, and drizzle the sauce on top. Garnish with some fresh thyme if you have it. REALLY easy. It’s the lemon juice that makes this dish (you add some to the spinach too). Do make this – it’s good. A quick, easy and tasty meal. Meanwhile,  I’m tivo’ing all of Melissa’s shows and collecting recipes like crazy.
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A year ago: Leg of Lamb with Lemon
Two years ago: New Wave Garlic Bread (a half-Asian kind of rustic garlic bread – really good – really, REALLY good)

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Any of you (probably over age 50) remember this dessert? Pinging my memory cells, I recall a dessert that was all the rage in the 1950’s. My mother made this or something similar for the pinochle nights my parents had with friends. Some of these 24-hour chilled desserts contained gelatin, both flavored and not. Nearly all of them contained whipped cream. Although some used evaporated milk (well chilled, then whipped – I was never very crazy about that canned milk flavor, but in case you don’t realize it, evaporated milk WILL whip up to a whipped cream consistency). Usually these desserts contained some fruit, some nuts. And vanilla wafers (crumbled). Some were frozen too, rather than chilled. Some were made in the Pyrex 10×7 dish (like this one). Others were done in a bread pan so you could slice a slab of it (mostly the frozen ones).

I made this for my friend Norma, who has graduated from being able to eat only soft puddings, to something like this. She isn’t fond of ‘nilla wafers, so I made it with crumbled graham crackers instead. So it’s not exactly true to the original, but close.

It’s an extremely easy dessert to make, and there’s no reason, really, that you couldn’t eat it as soon as you make it, but the butter layer does firm up just a bit if you chill it overnight. This one is not made with gelatin at all. Here’s the drill: Place the crumb layer in the bottom of a 10×7 Pyrex dish. Then you cream butter and sugar, add 2 eggs (yes, this dessert contains raw eggs) and a tad of vanilla. That is layered into the dish (not too heavy-handed or you’ll pick up crumbs with the spoon. In a clean bowl, cream is whipped, and you add the pineapple and chopped walnuts. That’s spread into the dish, then more crumbs on top. Chill 24 hours. How difficult is that?

The recipe I started with was waaay too sweet, so I’ve reduced the amount of sugar in the version below. But if you prefer sweeter stuff, by all means add more powdered sugar to the butter mixture. The taste was nearly what I remembered. I need to look further for some other similar pineapple desserts to see if this is the only version. It was good. And not too bad for us if you take small portions. It does serve 12. Some recipes suggest adding another dollop of whipped cream on top and a maraschino cherry on top of that. Probably looks pretty, but it really isn’t necessary.
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A year ago: Tomato Watermelon Salad

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In the summertime I enjoy serving a cold soup to guests – in a short glass as pictured above – when we’re enjoying conversation and wine on our patio. Not everyone likes cold soups, I’ve found. So you have to know your audience, your eating companions.

I hunted around for an appropriate recipe. I’ve made several cold soups over the years. My regular gazpacho is a favorite, but it is quite a lot of work. More than I felt like doing. Besides, we were having a lebanese layered salad with dinner that contained many of the same veggies. One of my favorites is a strawberry gazpacho – perfect when strawberries are at their peak (they’re past that now). But my DH doesn’t love that soup as much as I do, and since this was a party in his honor, I had to scratch that one off the list. I also have a citrus gazpacho that I concocted many years ago, trying to copy a soup I’d had at Cafe Pasqual’s in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Now I have Katherine Kagel’s cookbook and it contains the real recipe – different than mine. But that wasn’t what I wanted either. Then I also have a white gazpacho – actually it’s an almond and cucumber combo – delicious – but I realized that was the soup I made for this same group of friends two years ago. We also needed a soup that would stand up to a Cabernet, which was what we’d be drinking. What to fix?

I finally decided to try this chilled avocado soup. In retrospect, perhaps it really wasn’t the right pairing with Cabernet – the avocado has too delicate a taste – or I should say the Cab overpowered the soup. But the soup itself was really good. Thick. Tasty. Not really like thick guacamole – it’s much thinner than that. I added some garlic powder to it – to give it a little kick. The other nice thing about this soup is that it must be made ahead, so it can chill. At least 24 hours. It will still good 48 hours later, and we had the last of it in tiny shot glasses 72 hours later. It was still bright green and tasty. Would I make it again? Yes, with the right meal. So keep that in mind if you decide to try this. Maybe serve it with white wine – I think it would pair better that way.
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A year ago: BBQ Macaroni Salad (so easy, so good)
Two years ago: Halibut Osso Buco (a lot of work, but worth doing)

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You’ve heard it here before. Brown food is hard to photograph. Hard to determine what’s IN there, isn’t it? I strategically placed the dried fruit so it would at least give the photo some color. It’s called Fesenjen – an Afghan dish – a braised chicken dish with a load of walnuts and pomegranate. Not much else except a bay leaf and some sugar. It’s also a popular celebration dish in both the Iranian and Persian cuisines, where it’s spelled fesenjan. Apparently some versions don’t add the sugar, so it can be anything from tart to sweet. But, in any case, it’s to be served with yellow or white rice in all of the cultures.

Cooking is sometimes serendipitous. You cook what you have. This is certainly an example of that kind of cooking. I had a chicken in the refrigerator that HAD to be used or I’d be throwing it out in the trash. The day I cooked this I had a very busy day, with little or no time to spend in the kitchen. Enter the next step of serendipity. The day prior my friend Cherrie gave me a birthday present (actually two) but one was a new cookbook fav or hers, Secrets of Slow Cooking, by Liana Kassoff.

Quickly perusing the index, yes, there was chicken. Several. But this one it had to be because I had all the ingredients. Well, most of them. I didn’t have all chicken thighs. I didn’t have a fresh pomegranate, nor did I have barberries (dried). So, more of the “necessity is the mother of invention.” I made this with a whole chicken and I made it with dried cranberries. The best part of the recipe was how easy it was. Very little prep time required. You don’t even have to brown the chicken. You DO have to toast the walnuts and grind them up in the food processor. See the photo below – toasted walnuts left, sort of fine ground nuts on the right. But the rest of the prep takes about 5 minutes or less.

So, exactly what’s involved? Place the raw, skinned chicken in the bottom of the slow cooker. Toast the walnuts and whiz them in the food processor to a fine grind. Toss in the slow cooker. Add a bay leaf and some water (or chicken broth). Slow cook on low for 3-4 hours. Remove chicken, cool slightly, remove meat from the bones.

Now, my slow cooker insert can be removed and used on the stovetop, so that’s what I did to finish the sauce. But if you don’t have that kind, you could pour it out into a saucepan (probably a better option). Or, just turn the slow cooker to high (put the lid back on) and get that juice to boil. Add the sugar (if using) and the pomegranate molasses. You want to boil down the broth. A lot harder to do in a slow cooker. If you leave the lid off it may never boil. If you leave it on, the boiling liquid inside can’t escape (most returns to the broth via steam). So, leave it on until it reaches a boil, then tilt the lid slightly so the steam can escape. You need the broth to reduce down and get a little thicker.

At the end you return the chicken to the pot just to reheat it all. Serve it over rice. This has a very different taste – it’s about the walnuts. For one chicken, 3 cups of walnuts is a LOT of nuts. I think next time I might use a bit less. But you don’t really KNOW they’re walnuts. They don’t turn to mush. But they’re not firm, either. Not soft like onions, but not in the least bit crisp. Nothing else has the texture quite like a cooked walnut. I saw one version on the internet (when I was researched the culinary history of this dish) that included a chopped onion. I think I’d add that next time. And although I did boil down the sauce on the stove, as instructed, I ended up with not enough liquid. I wanted a bit more for the rice.

Note that there is no salt added. Or pepper. I did when it was served, but it only needed a tiny amount. So this is good if you’re on a salt-restricted diet. I use a low sodium chicken broth too. And, although I had to use a whole chicken, chicken thighs are best for this. The chicken breast meat was overcooked. Only dark meat can withstand that kind of long cooking and still retain some moisture. I used a LOT less sugar also (only a couple of tablespoons). If you or your family like sweet meat, then by all means add in all the sugar. The calorie count on this one is high because of the nuts. But they’re the good kind of fat, remember. The nuts make the dish. And the pomegranate molasses adds an elusive flavor to it. I’d make this again. I’d just add onion, and retain more of the liquid. And, I’d follow the recipe exactly, using chicken thighs. This whole dish could easily be made on the stovetop too. Probably cooked for about an hour only.
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A year ago: About the bugs that arrived in my pantry who ate a whole lot of chocolate, and a year later, they’re still there, although in far fewer numbers. Requires me to put nearly everything in heavy-duty plastic bags or sealed boxes, particularly grains and flours.
Two years ago: Calabacitas con Crema (oh yum, luv this stuff – it’s a mixed vegetable with corn and chiles and a touch of cream). I posted a second recipe that day (why?) called Crostini with Apples, Blue Cheese and a drizzle of honey. Has become one of my favorite appetizers.

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Last week I was reading Cheryl Sternman Rule’s blog, called 5secondrule, and having just written up a post a few days before about plums (everything you might possibly want to know about them) this cold soup recipe jumped out at me and said fix me. It took me a week to find good plums (at Costco) and another day or two to get around to making it.

The recipe (in its original form) is credited to Bruce Weinstein and  Mark Scarbrough, in their cookbook Cooking Know-How. And in their recipe it’s suggested as a first course. To me, it’s too sweet to be a first course, so I went at it thinking of it as a dessert. And is it yummy. Having just made the cherry compote with a bunch of spices in it, I decided to add a few more to this recipe. So, the allspice berries and coriander seeds are my additions. Otherwise the recipe is exactly as written.

It’s EASY to make. You simmer the plums in water and the spices, remove the spices and discard, remove the fruit, boil down the liquid, add it to the plums, then add in the sugar, yogurt and red wine. Puree – either in a blender, food processor, or with a stick blender. Chill. If you serve it as a first course, you might thin it out a little bit with a bit of milk (or cream or half-and-half). As a dessert I liked it a bit thicker. I also added the fillip of crème fraîche and the sprigs of mint. I had to sample it as soon as I made it, and also dished out a little glass for my DH. He proclaimed “wow, this is wonderful.” Just make sure you get out all the spices – so count them, okay? It’s not fun biting into an allspice berry. But make this, you should. Enough said.
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A year ago: Strawberry Coffeecake

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