The other day we were out at our house in the desert. (We rented it for much of the “season” this year, and the tenants had just left. We want to use the house some in the next few weeks before the weather turns too hot to enjoy except inside in air conditioning.) The weather was absolutely picture-perfect. Temps in the low 80’s, shorts and t-shirt weather. Sandals weather. And I forgot to pack breakfast food, so oh-gee, we’ll have to go out <BG>. I decided to surprise my DH. I said “Trust me, honey, I’m going to surprise you – we’re taking a ride.” I’ve known about The Parker for awhile, but since it’s a 10-mile drive from our house there, it was always seemed a bit too far to go, for breakfast.

My friend Rachel has raved about the hotel for almost as long as it’s been in existence. Her daughter was married there last year and I saw pictures of it. I think it used to be the Merv Griffin hotel, but was redone – in retro 1930’s-60’s chic. It’s a kind of hoot, if you will, to walk into a lobby with funky chotsky from my own bygone era. Naugahyde. Bright orange. Canary yellow. Gee-gaws of all kinds gracing tables. A couple of chain mail just inside the front door seem a bit out of place, but they add to the funky feel. After walking through the lobby building you go outside and there’s Norma’s. It does have indoor seating too, but its charm is the outdoor patio. Also so retro 50’s, I had to laugh. Take a look!

The hot spot (not literally) to sit is along the outside edges (the orange banquettes). None was available when we got there. I snapped this photo from our table, which was just fine nevertheless. First they delivered a little shot glass of berry smoothie. Oh my was it ever scrumptious. It’s on the menu too, but they brought us an amuse bouche. It was piquant. Barely icy. Then they brought us carafes of coffee (you can see the press pots sitting on the table in the left foreground). The coffee was fabulous. I don’t know what they use, but it was elegant, deep, dark, full of flavor. Even my DH, who is a real coffee snob, thought it was excellent.

We ordered a single order of eggs benedict and shared. The eggs were perfectly done – still runny, but oozing just right. The Hollandaise was also light and pleasant (obviously they make it fresh). Not too much. Not too little. They served it with a small mound of mache and some baby purple potatoes that were perfectly cooked. I’ve seen purple potatoes, but never eaten them – they really are purple inside. I liked the texture. And the flavor. We leisurely finished our breakfast, and enjoyed every last slurp of our coffee before wandering out onto the grounds (see greenery in rear of patio photo). It was lovely – with small seating areas here and there, some in, some out of the sunshine. Fountains burbling in various places as well. Trails meander in different directions, eventually coming to the bungalows. Of course, we weren’t staying there, so didn’t get to see any rooms, but you can view a few on their website if you’re interested. The hotel is now part of the Meridien chain (Starwood). We heard several languages being spoken as we sat in the restaurant.

If you enjoy the ambiance of a small hotel, this one fits that ticket perfectly. And I concur with my friend Rachel that the food at Norma’s is exquisite. Rachel raves about the French Toast. The hotel also has a dinner restaurant which Rachel has recommended too. Guess we’ll have to go back to try that another visit. Try it we will, and maybe we’ll even go to breakfast there again. Just have a full wallet – it’s not cheap. Definitely a splurge, but I didn’t begrudge a penny of it. With coffee at $6 per pot and one breakfast entree, our bill was $34, not including tip and valet.

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No question, this may have been the most “fun” cake I’ve ever made. And it’s really very easy to boot. It’s not like you might have trouble getting your family (kids, especially) to eat cake, but this one they might enjoy more than usual.

Really, this is nothing but a vanilla cake, divided in half with dark cocoa added to one half, then you carefully scoop small portions of each batter on top of each other until you’ve used up all the batters. It’s a type of marble cake, I suppose, it’s just that you treat the batter differently in the pan. A caution – don’t jiggle the pan much, don’t tilt it, and the recipe said definitely not to open the oven to check on it (at least for the first 20 minutes). All the hard zebra work occurs in the oven as the circles of batter rise and weave a bit. The cake batter came together very easily. I weighed the mixture to try to divide it equally – I came up with 880 grams total, so 440 in each bowl.

I sprayed the two small dippers I used with canola spray (although I really can’t say it helped after the first couple of scoops). You do need to be careful about drips – from whatever you’re using as your 2-3 T. dippers, as you do not want to see plops of batter all over the top of the cake. I tried my best to pour smoothly, but I wasn’t exact with mine, so some of the circles are a little wavy. Likely it doesn’t make any difference to the finished product. You scoop vanilla in first. It spreads a little bit – flattens out, but it’s thick enough that it doesn’t go very far. Then you scoop chocolate batter, in the CENTER of the vanilla, then vanilla in the middle of the chocolate, and so on. Eventually the first scoop has pushed itself all the way to the outside edges, with all the other stripes right behind it. I ended up with a bit more chocolate leftover, so the last scoop ended up being about two. If you want more defined separations, you may want to use about 3 T. of batter per pour.

Here’s a photo of the batter before baking. Fun, huh? This recipe is in several places on the internet, I found, with a few variations (one mixture has Sprite in it). The recipe I used came from Ferida at AZCookbook, a blogger who hails from Azerbijan. She lives not too far from me, actually, in Long Beach, California. Ferida’s recipe called for 3 T. of batter for each stripe, but others I read suggested 2 T, so I decided to try that. The only other caution I read in several places is that you need to use DARK cocoa (you can use Hershey’s, though it’s more bitter than some and will make a less-sweet cake), and not Dutch process (too light/mild). My extra dark cocoa came from Penzey’s, in case you want to try it. It wasn’t as dark as I might have liked to see, comparing my cake with the photos of others’.

The cake itself? Very nice. With a cup of oil in it, it’s certainly not “light!” But it’s good. I made the cake after dinner the other night and it was lovely in the morning for Dave’s Bible Study group. Next time I probably will use Ferida’s suggestion of 3 T. per pour, and that’s about the only thing I’d change. Maybe I’ll try Hershey’s cocoa just to see the difference. I used a nonstick pan, and did grease it with oil, but I had a bit of difficulty getting the cake out, so I’d recommend you use parchment paper on the bottom even if you’re using a nonstick pan.
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A year ago: A Master Grilling Guide (what temp to grill meats)

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The name Marion Cunningham reached the altitude of my food-seeking radar a couple of years ago. I know I’d heard her name in foodie circles (magazines, books, Food Network) over the years, but didn’t own any of her books. She’s most famous for writing the Fannie Farmer Cookbook. And more recently she wrote a book called Lost Recipes, about good, old-fashioned kinds of recipes we’re known to rely on, but they’ve gotten lost in the flurry of fast food, take out and a general cooking malaise. The first recipe to reach my radar was a year or so ago when I made her unbelievably good and light dumplings on top of a chicken stew. That’s when I realized she knew a thing or two about how to get around a baking kitchen.

Then, recently I tried a coffee cake that came from her book, The Breakfast Book. I didn’t own that cookbook either. But I made a trip to a local library and found it there – so I photocopied a bunch of recipes from it. This recipe below was one.

The other night we’d invited friends to come over for a salad dinner. It was warm enough to eat outside, and I had most of the ingredients on hand to make one of my favorite salads – another Phillis Carey recipe – her Mexican Chopped Salad with Cilantro Dressing . I added chicken to it and it became our main course. Sue brought over an appetizer – one of my recipes as a matter of fact – gorgonzola, grape and pine nut crostini – and some brownies she’d made the day before which I paired with my roasted strawberry balsamic vinegar ice cream. We had a feast, along with the leftover margaritas I’d made over the weekend.

So, now, to finally get to the recipe, I didn’t have any bread to serve with the salad dinner, so I grabbed the photocopied recipe for custard-filled cornbread I’d just saved from Cunningham’s book. It took about 10+ minutes to put together. Tops.

This bread, served as is, probably is best suited to serve with breakfast – but only because of the sweetness to it. But actually, if you reduce the sugar just a little bit, it’s wonderful with any dinner. Yes, it’s cornbread. And yes, it’s a little sweet (not overly, though), but it’s SO delicious. It’s like no cornbread you’ve ever had, unless you’ve had one similar to this one. You mix up a cornbread batter (I used fine ground polenta-type cornmeal) and pour it into a hot 9×9 pan. Then, just before you carefully pop this into the oven, you pour a cup of cream into the CENTER of the batter. And you don’t touch it. No stirring. Nothing. As it bakes, the cream infiltrates the entire pan in the middle of the cornbread (how? I have no idea the chemistry of this, except to note that it works!), and gives you a very moist, creamy, soft cornbread. You can see the creamy, custardy layer in the center, in the photo at top. We had this as leftovers a couple of nights later, and it was as good if not better than the first time. My DH even went back for a second piece. It went perfectly with the salad. I will make this again. Definitely. And, I’ll be on the lookout at used book stores for some of Cunningham’s older cookbooks.
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A year ago: Pork Tenderloin with Maple-Mustard Sauce

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What is it about beverages – they just don’t photograph very well. Of course, I was in our daughter’s kitchen, using ambient light, no background to speak of. And she didn’t have martini glasses (neither do I, for that matter). You’ll just have to trust me that this recipe is worth reading about and trying yourself. I don’t like a salt-rimmed margarita, so my glass was just kinda plain looking.

It was about 5-6 years ago when I read an in-depth article in Cooks Illustrated about margaritas. And because the prose about it was so grand, I decided I had to try it. I’m not a fan of bottled margarita mix. It’s got some kind of off flavor to my palate. It’s certainly easy; but I’d almost rather do without than have to imbibe the ready-made mix. So this recipe for the real thing, using JUST fresh lemon and lime juices plus some sugar (plus the tequila and triple sec) is SO, SO much better. I made a huge quantity (to serve 10 adults for our son-in-law’s birthday) and had about 2 cups of the lemon/lime juice leftover. The next night we invited our friends Sue and Lynn over for dinner. Lynn said, after he’d downed two of them, “this, I think, is the best margarita I’ve ever had in my life.” I concur.

What sets this recipe apart from other margarita recipes is the marinating time. What? Marinating? Yes, you marinate the juices along with some of the lemon and lime peel to give it a much more intense flavor. Indeed it does. I marinate for 24 hours, always, but the recipe says 4 hours or up to 24. The second thing about these is the use of Reposado tequila. This isn’t the cheap-cheap stuff you use here, but the aged agave Reposado variety. Maybe a little harder to find, and a bit more expensive (but not a lot). However, the liquor is more mellow, if you can say that anything that’s 70+ proof alcohol is mellow. I’ve made these 4 or 5 times in the ensuing years and have heard good reviews every time. Don’t be lazy and use just lemon juice – the drink needs both lemon and lime juices. Perfect for a warm afternoon or a dinner outside!
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A year ago: Chocolate Chunk & Dried Cherry Oatmeal Cookies

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At the cooking class last week Phillis Carey served this rice with an Andouille sausage shrimp mixture. The rice by itself is certainly okay. Not off the charts, but it’s not supposed to be since it’s just a foil for the spicy Andouille and shrimp with all the Cajun/Creole spices involved. She made this more healthy by adding in some fresh spinach. A little nod to getting your 5-a-day. The pecans are what “make” this, though. So, in the recipe below I’ve added two things to Phillis’ recipe: more garlic and pecans. Feel free to alter the recipe to suit your tastes. You’ll enjoy the bit of crunch from the pecans, and the spinach is colorful and good for us. If you want to make it more healthy, reduce the amount of butter. If you enjoy Southern cookin’, New Orleans kind of spicy and full-flavored food, this with the Andouille and shrimp from yesterday’s post, is an easier dish than making the labor intensive jambalaya.
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A year ago: Chicken Breasts with Bacon, Onions, and Mushrooms in a Creamy Paprika Sauce

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Oh, was this dish ever delicious. It was served at the cooking class I went to last week. The class was all about martinis, but Phillis Carey served food along with each of the three martinis. This was my favorite food item of the evening. It’s a sausage (andouille here, although she said you could also use hot Kielbasa instead) and shrimp stir-fry kind of mixture with onions and bell peppers, served over a bed of rice with spinach, garlic and pecans (that recipe tomorrow). What held the andouille shrimp mixture together was a sauce made up of Creole mustard, chicken broth and red wine vinegar.

Cajun seasoning is available most places now, but just in case, Phillis gave us a recipe to make our own without the salt (preferred): combine 5 T paprika, 2 tsp or up to 1 T cayenne pepper (if you like heat you can add more, to a max of 2 T), 1/4 c garlic powder, 2 T onion powder, 2 T black pepper, 3 T dried oregano and 2 T of dried thyme. It will keep for one month (enough for several dishes). Do not add salt to this (most prepared ones contain salt, which would make this dish way too salty).

The shrimp is tossed with the seasoning mixture (above). The sausage is cut diagonally and briefly sauteed. The shrimp is also briefly sauteed. Then you saute the onions and red bell pepper strips, make the sauce in with them, then you add in the sausage and shrimp just to heat through before serving over the rice. If you enjoy spicy stuff, here’s your ticket.
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A year ago: Herbed Biscuit Ring

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A couple of weeks ago my friend Linda and I visited the gorgeous “flower fields” in Carlsbad. If you measured the rows, I’m sure it would be many, many miles of rununculus. In full bloom. Turning their faces to the sunshine. Since this is a Sunday, I’m thinking about God, that’s he’s at work here, reminding us of what he’s created for us to enjoy.

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Well, I suppose this photo doesn’t look like much. But then, a regular, ordinary martini with gin and vermouth plus an olive doesn’t have much “color” character either. I don’t happen to like gin or vodka martinis at all. But the newer-fangled boutique martinis, that’s another story altogether.

The other night I attended a very fun cooking class with Phillis Carey. She teaches a few classes a year about margaritas and martinis (always to sold-out crowds). This one was no different! Packed. It wasn’t JUST martinis, of course – Phillis made three possible entrees and a dessert to go with the three different martinis. This martini was my favorite.

If you have the ingredients on hand, this has got to be a cinch to make. Usually Phillis doesn’t serve this with a sugared rim on the glass (in our case, plastic cups), but the cooking school staff got carried away dipping in lemon juice and dunking in superfine sugar. So you can eliminate the sugar if you’d prefer. The drink really doesn’t need it as it’s sweet enough. You can barely see a little wedge of pear floating in the bottom of the cup – I took it off the rim and let it soak – ooh, it was tasty after it had been in the martini for 10 minutes. Probably just ONE of these drinks would be enough before dinner or you and your guests might be, well, lying supine for the rest of the evening.
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So maybe instead of wasting a paragraph of text telling you how I came about making this into a soup, perhaps I should just say – instead – I wanted to try this recipe for pork shanks and made it with more chicken stock and planned on making a soup. But I’d be lying. I wanted to make the Spanish Pork Braise which is kind of like osso buco, except it’s pork instead of veal. But after defrosting what I thought were pork shanks from our 4-H pig, I discovered the two packages were ham hocks. The packages said “pork shanks.” And the other package I thought was going to be nice smaller pieces of pork chunks, ended up being ground pork sausage. Sigh. So what to do? Improvise, of course.

The recipe calls for all kinds of interesting herb and chile flavors, and they all sounded wonderful. I didn’t have prosciutto, so knew from the get-go I wasn’t going to add that. I cut way down on the beans since it was going to be a soup. I used pinto (pink) beans instead of garbanzo, and the gremolata I had was leftover from the night before made to go on grilled chicken.

All the chiles and herbs added a lovely depth to the broth. The celery, onions and carrots gave it texture. The meats (both) gave it good flavor. The chili powder gave it just a little bit of bite, but not much. Perfect, actually. And the gremolata sprinkled on the top (you can barely see it in the photo) gave it a little zing. It went together easily enough, simmered on the stove for an hour or two (I made the beans from scratch in a separate pot), and provided a tasty repast with a nice slice of ciabatta to go with it. And I have enough for at least two more meals. Yes, I’d make it again and I’d double the amount of vegetables. If you would like to make the original recipe, head over to epicurious. There are a variety of other things added to their recipe.
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A year ago:  Ham & Asparagus Frittata

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This was served the other night as a vegetable side dish. I added asparagus to it (just because I had some and needed to use it). It’s very easy – I’ve compared ingredients to see if this Italian vegetable pie is actually similar to the newer-fangled “impossible” pie. The kind that makes a shell of sorts, as it cooks. It’s similar, per my brief search on the ‘net. This one doesn’t have any baking powder in it, has only one egg, and uses more flour.

The recipe on which I based this tart came from a website called Sherrie’s Kitchen. Sherrie is a German by birth and has oodles of German recipes on her site (though she lives in England). And a few Italian recipes too (this one). I also added some thyme to the mixture and some shredded Parmesan (the real stuff) to the top. It’s easy to burn this (because of the cheese), so watch the top carefully and reduce heat if it starts to brown too much. Do not put these at the top of your oven as they’ll get too brown too soon. And be sure it’s done – it’s hard to tell since the bubbling and browned cheese will give you the illusion it’s done after 10 minutes. Do bake it sufficiently.

What you end up with is a pie. Yes, a veggie pie. With a kind of pudding or custard or batter around it. Because the zucchini contains so much water, it’s vital that you salt it and let it sit so you lose some of the fluid before you begin assembling this dish. Because of the salt on the zucchini, I eliminated the salt in the batter. Taste it, though, to see if it’s salty enough for your tastes. If you like Parmesan, add more. Eliminate the asparagus if you don’t have it. Don’t like thyme? Change it to marjoram or oregano. Want it more puffy? Add another egg. This is the kind of dish that’s quite forgiving, I think. Have yellow squash instead? That’s a no-brainer. Of course you could substitute. My DH enjoyed this immensely, as did the group of friends we had over for a potluck dinner. And the leftovers are almost better than when they’re fresh out of the oven. I heated pieces for 60 seconds in the microwave and they were just perfect.
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A year ago: Tandoori-Style Cauliflower

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