This recipe has been living in my to-try file for . . oh, gosh . . . since 2003. It came from a Phillis Carey cooking class that I didn’t attend, but my friend Cherrie did, and she photocopied the recipe for me to try. It was a class utilizing citrus, and wow, does this recipe every qualify (orange juice, orange segments and lemon juice). I bought some citrus (blood oranges, Naval oranges, yellow limes) at a farmer’s market in Carlsbad the other day. The blood orange segments were so beautiful on this finished chicken dish. And they made for a lovely-colored sauce too.

I can’t tell you this one is easy or quick. There are several steps, all requiring different pans and a bit of food prep too. But I’ll tell you for sure, this was gosh-darned good. My DH wanted to know all about what was in it (something he ordinarily doesn’t ask). He did grumble a bit when he got to the sink after dinner and saw the rather large mound of plates, bowls, pans, lids, knives, measuring cups, whisks, juicer, etc. he had to wash. And that was just for the entree alone.

For a variety of reasons I did change the recipe somewhat. Read down below the recipe for my Notes. But I’ll definitely make this again – if you were to do it for guests, it does require some prep at the last minute. I served this with fresh steamed broccoli florets and drizzled just a bit of the orange rosemary sauce over them too.
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A year ago: Monterey Scalloped Potatoes (a perenial favorite, with Jack cheese)

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It was a few weeks ago that my friend Linda sent me an email raving about a new recipe for a lemon chicken soup. She said she’d made it twice in just a few days. Then again the following weekend. And then again because I was coming to visit. The recipe is gosh-darned EASY. Really. And you’d almost swear there is cream in it, but there is NOT. Linda had prepped the chicken ahead of time, and it probably took her about 20+ minutes to make the soup from beginning to end.

The lemon is the THING in this soup. You absolutely can’t eliminate it. No matter what. Linda uses Meyer lemons, but probably any lemon juice will do – just taste and add more if needed. Meyers are sweeter than regular lemons, so adjust accordingly.

The recipe originally came from Ellie Krieger (of Food Network fame) but it was published (apparently) in Taste of Home. I couldn’t find the original source recipe, but found many, many comments about this soup. My friend Linda has added a lot more thyme to it, and she varies the amount of broth or water also. Add more fluid to suit your taste.
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A year ago: Applesauce Spice Cake with Caramel Glaze – oh my goodness, I’ve made this probably 10 times in the last year

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Over the years I’ve posted several recipes from my friend, Linda. Specifically, her Carrot Cake, Bombay Chicken, her Corned Beef, and her daughter Kris’ cocktail, Hot as Haiti.  So I knew when I went to visit her over this last weekend that we’d be eating well. Indeed, we did. I’ll be sharing several of Linda’s recipes this week. The second night I stayed with her she made this stir-fry of ground turkey with fresh green beans and red bell peppers. It was scrumptious. When she told me some time back about how addictive this dish is, I didn’t quite believe her. I’m sorry that I don’t have any of the leftovers to enjoy tonight. As I’m typing this post, my mouth is watering.

You can count on one hand the number of Asian recipes on my blog. Asian-inspired? Many. True stir-frys. Uh. Not many. But this one’s a keeper. The original recipe came from Cooking Light (in 2006) and was made with ground pork. Somehow over the couple of years (the iterations from Linda’s daughter Kris’ friend Lisa, to Kris to Linda) it’s been altered some, additions were made, and a different dish was made. Be sure to prepare it in a nonstick skillet or wok (the turkey will stick otherwise). You could add your own different veggies (like celery, onion, mushrooms, perhaps) but don’t change the green beans. It’s the sauce that makes it – that gives it the addictive quality. This dish is sweet – that I’ll tell you right off the top. If you don’t enjoy sweet entrees, this just may not be your Chinese cup of black tea. When I make it, I’ll probably eliminate the sugar and perhaps add less Hoisin (because I don’t like really sweet entrees). In the below recipe I reduced the amount of dried red chiles – but if you like the hot stuff, by all means add more.
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A year ago: Kurobuta Ham with Mustard Sauce

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Honestly, I’m not eating all these cookies I’ve been baking lately. Most have gone to a friend who needs them right now, and last week I thought I should give her yet another type of CC cookie. CC cookies are what she craves, so CC cookies it is! Plus we were going to a book group meeting the other night and I thought it would be nice to take a little something to Jean, the hostess, who made a fabulous St. Patty’s dinner for us book-groupies (Jean and Jack are Irish, and made Scotch Eggs, scones, lemon curd, quiche, desserts, plus gallons of Irish Coffee). Jean reads my blog (thank you, Jean) and is always telling me how much she craves some of the food I prepare and write up here on my blog. She loves sweets, so I thought I’d take her some of these cookies.

I’d marked the recipe over at Eggbeater (a blog) about 2 years ago, but hadn’t ever gotten around to making them. What makes these unique are cardamom and dark brown sugar. Well, I have to admit, I didn’t HAVE dark brown sugar, but I surely do hope that light brown won’t have spoiled the recipe. I had everything else on hand, and whipped these up in no time flat.

For my first time around I chose to use regular chocolate chips rather than some of the high-priced chocolate bar-type Shuna recommended – I wasn’t a bit concerned that I wouldn’t LIKE these – I was sure I would – but the next time I’ll definitely use the “good stuff” in them. As I’ve likely said way too many times, there aren’t many chocolate chip cookies I’ve met that I haven’t liked. And in this case I didn’t think either Norma or Jean would care that I used Nestle’s instead of an expensive 65% chocolate chip/chunk.

Shuna shared a funny story about these cookies – about how she used to make them for the kitchen staff, but in time they became a regular, then she kept the batter in the refrigerator at all times. Those are the kinds of credentials that make for a good formula. Shuna recommends using parchment paper on the cookie sheets, so the chocolate doesn’t burn. The batter is soft – softer than usual – but worked just perfectly when baked.

I’m not going to write up a separate post about the book we reviewed, but will just mention that it was REALLY interesting. Gripping. Riveting. Couldn’t-put-it-down kind of read. Called Loving Frank, by Nancy Horan. Several in our book group read it last year, raved about it, so we included it in our book reads for ’09. What a story. It’s the fictionalized account (but based on the real events) of the affair between Mamah (pronounced may-mah) Borthwick Cheney (a married woman with 2 young children) and Frank Lloyd Wright (also married, with 6 children). In the 1905 timeframe in Oak Park, Illinois, the affair was absolutely scandalous. Off the charts scintillating. Nearly the ruin of Wright’s career. Both left their respective spouses (AND children) and escaped to Europe for about a year, madly in love with one another, where they lived together. Mamah’s husband eventually granted her a divorce, but Wright’s wife refused. So marriage wasn’t in the cards for them. Wright had designed and built a house for the Cheneys (that’s how they met). Eventually both returned to the U.S. and Wright built a home an hour or two away from Chicago where they could basically hide. That’s Taliesen, the famous home, in the woodlands of Wisconsin. What happens after that I just can’t tell you. You really have to read the book. Despite the subject being infidelity, I found this book compelling nevertheless. And what happens is chilling. Enough said. Buy the book. Read it.

The cookies? Sweet. Flatter than some. Caramely. Chocolate-y. Crispy on the edges and soft in the middle. Overall: good. Will I make them again? Well, maybe. I might try them with the expensive ingredients. I couldn’t taste the cardamom, so would increase it in the recipe below. I also chilled the dough, which made it easier to spoon onto cookie sheets. And next time I might add chopped walnuts to the dough too. But then, I like nuts.
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It isn’t often that you can create a marinade and use that same marinade as a sauce. It could be done more, I suppose, except that often the ingredients in a marinade contain things that you wouldn’t want in a finishing sauce (things that tenderize meat, like a brine, or beer, vinegar, other acidic citrus juices, etc.). In this case, once the boneless leg of lamb was marinated in the cherry and Merlot marinade, that same marinade was simmered (to make sure the raw-meat bacteria were boiled), pureed and used as a delicious sauce.

This is another recipe from the cooking class I attended last week at Great News in San Diego, and taught by Phillis Carey. It’s for recipes like this one that my friend Cherrie and I keep going back to Phillis’ classes, since she comes up with the most interesting food combinations. I’d never have thought to use frozen cherries as the basis for a marinade. I’m glad she did!

So, you combine the marinade (cherries, Merlot, shallot, garlic, brown sugar, red wine vinegar, oil, marjoram, basil and soy sauce) and marinate for 4-12 hours. If you’re fortunate enough to have a Costco near you, pick up one of their boneless legs of lamb. Such a bargain! After removing the lamb from its covering you spread it out – stretch it out, if you will – and fix the thick parts. By its very nature, the boneless lamb has a couple of thick knobby parts, and if you were to grill it as-is, those knobs would be raw inside and the thinner parts would dried up if you continued to cook it. Answer? You make some moderately deep slits (not clear through) across the knobby parts to kind of flatten them. Allows the thicker parts to cook more evenly. You’ll still have some parts of the lamb that will be more medium to medium-well cooked, but the thicker parts will be perfectly (to me, anyway) grilled to medium-rare.

If you use a meat thermometer (recommended), roast the meat to 130, remove and tent the meat while you finish up the dinner, then cut thinner slices and drizzle with the cherry-Merlot sauce that you’ve boiled down. Phillis actually served this lamb with a dried cherry-pecan relish (creme de cassis, water, sugar, dried tart cherries, pecans and orange zest) but the cherry-Merlot sauce was all I wanted on my portion. If you’re interested in the relish, go to the bottom of the recipe and you’ll find it.
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When I first saw this serving of sweet potatoes on my plate I thought those little slivers of garlic were burned. I thought “oh, no, this isn’t going to taste good.” Well, let me tell you, those little gems of very browned garlic were caramelized and delicious anyway. I ate every one of them.

From the Phillis Carey cooking class last week this recipe was served with a pork tenderloin. But it would be just great with probably any roasted or grilled meat. And talk about EASY. All you do it peel and cut the orange-fleshed sweet potatoes (we call them yams, although they’re really not) into thick coins (1/2 inch thick) toss with olive oil, sliced garlic, fresh rosemary and salt and pepper and spread them out on a Silpat-lined baking sheet and roast for 30-40 minutes. Sublime flavor. Tubers like this caramelize when they roast, which gives them a lovely sweet flavor. These were outstanding and a different version I’ll be making in the future.
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A year ago: Beef Stew with Currants & Cream

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Leafing through some recipes for pork tenderloin, nothing struck my fancy. Either I didn’t have the ingredients, or it sounded like too much work. Then provenance provided. A friend from my art class brought in some citrus to share. Handing us a bag, we picked through and took what appealed. Paz told us that these little guys (pictured) are sour limes. (No, they’re not kumquats, although they’re similar in size, but not in shape.) But, these were the orangest-looking limes I’ve ever seen, but they were tart. Very tart. What to do with them? Paz said she doesn’t use them for anything, that’s why she was giving them away. She suggested a lemonade-type drink, using lots of sugar.

Why not a marinade, then? I concocted my own mixture of a little bit of olive oil, the sour citrus juice and a clove of garlic, mashed. It marinated with the pork tenderloin for a few hours, and I rolled it around a bit now and then to make sure all the sufaces were in contact with the meat.

Pork is so lean these days, that I never serve a tenderloin, anyway, without something to go with it. It needs a sauce or a salsa, or something to accompany it. Even though the meat is tender and moist (if it’s cooked right), tenderloin in and of itself lacks any robust flavor. So serving it with a strong-flavored sauce is generally a good thing. Paz also gave us oranges, so I created a VERY easy pan sauce to accompany the pork. While the meat was roasting in a 400 oven, I sauteed some yellow onion (slices, halved), then added some fresh orange juice and vermouth and just before serving I added some orange zest.

I removed the roast when it reached 140 on my handy-dandy meat thermometer (I have the probe-type that inserts into the meat and dangles out the oven door to its base, where I set the finished temp). Once I took it out of the oven, I tented it lightly with foil, which keeps the meat warm. It actually rose in temp another 4-5 degrees while it sat. Meanwhile I finished up the rest of the dinner and salad, then the meat was sliced a bit on the diagonal and I spooned some of this pan sauce on top. The onion had taken on the sweetness of the orange juice, tempered by the vermouth, and was altogether lovely. Each bite of pork was consumed with a bit of the orangy-onion. If you wanted even more flavor, add some dried cranberries, or even raisins. Another option would be to add the sections (supremes) of another orange to the sauce just before serving (cook them just long enough to heat them through in the pan sauce).
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A year ago: Cilantro Chicken

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My mouth is watering as I just look at the photo above. I wish I didn’t enjoy mashed potatoes like I do – I really do my darndest to avoid them if I can just because they’re not all that good for us – well me, anyway. Especially with all the fixin’s, the bacon, chives, cream and cheddar cheese and it’s nothing short of scrumptious, and fattening. Left to my own devices I could probably just eat this for dinner. Period.

So, does that tell you enough that you want to make these? Phillis Carey whipped these up at last week’s “Meat & Potatoes” cooking class. I wanted to lick the plate! They were served with the Beer Marinated Steaks – the little bit of gravy you see at the bottom of the potatoes above is the peppercorn sauce that went with the steaks. Yummy.

Phillis told us something that I’d never heard before – when you cook any vegetable that’s grown below ground (potatoes, carrots, parsnips, beets, tubers of all kinds) they should be brought to a simmer in COLD water. Somehow the cell structure is different for these below-ground tubers that don’t take kindly to being dropped into boiling water. Okay. I can remember that, I think.

Use russets or Yukon types for this – you want that drier, flakier kind of finished potato, not the dense type like white potatoes. Phillis suggested you cut each potato into about 4 pieces, cook just until tender, then drain and allow to air dry for 5 minutes. This helps make these the fluffy type you’re hoping for. It allows more of the water to drain off. At the class the potatoes were simmered in pasta pots (with the insert) and when they were done the helpers just propped the pasta strainer full of the potatoes up on an angle to drain and dry, and the potatoes benefited from the steam below (to help them stay warm). You don’t want to allow them to get cold, because you make this and serve it immediately.

The whole idea is that you want these potatoes to look almost like the baked potato with the toppings – so the cheese is still barely melted, but not streaked through the potatoes at all. It gives a completely different look to the potatoes than making it into a casserole.

Phillis also gave us an option for preparing this ahead. I’ve mentioned it here before, that for Thanksgiving I make the mashed potatoes several hours ahead – with cream cheese, buttermilk, butter, seasonings – then they go into the crockpot to be kept at a low heat for several hours. It’s the cream cheese that’s the secret – it helps keep the potatoes bound together so they stay fluffy and soft.

If you’re not wanting to use whipping cream, try substituting buttermilk in these – that’s my favorite go-to dairy for mashed potatoes. Or maybe half cream and half buttermilk. Buttermilk just lightens up potatoes beautifully. Try it next time if you’ve never done it that way. Have all the ingredients ready (the cheese, the bacon, the chives) when you mix it in – be all ready to serve as these are best when they’re mixed up and 1-2-3 right onto your plate.
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Files: MasterCook 5+ and MasterCook 14 (click link to open MC – 14 contains photo)

A year ago: Corned Beef

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Subtitle: Or how to use up 3 languishing pears when there’s no time to make pastry.

I bought some nice winter pears the other day, with nothing particular in mind for them. But they were at their peak of ripeness yesterday, and needed to be eaten or made into something. Clafoutis sounded like a good thing to me. I’d spent a good part of the day making the corned beef and cabbage dinner, and didn’t really want to add more laborious baking chores to my evening. What would be easy, I asked myself? Clafoutis it is.

If you’ve never made a clafoutis (I think it’s pronounced cla-foo-tee), it’s really very, VERY easy. It doesn’t exactly make a pastry bottom, but sort of. You whisk up a thin batter of eggs, sugar (I used Splenda so my husband could have some), melted butter, a bit of flour, flavorings (cinnamon, vanilla and maple) and some milk. The fruit is sliced up into the bottom of a buttered tart, pie or cake pan, preferably in a decorative pattern, then the batter is poured on top. The egg custardy batter settles down in between the fruit and bakes nicely in the oven for nearly an hour. If you glance at the top picture you can see the custardy mixture that creates a sort-of eggy pastry on the bottom.

I found the recipe on the internet, at Domestic Goddess. I chose this one because of the maple flavoring in the batter and the little bit of maple syrup you drizzle over it when it’s served (I poured a little heavy cream on Dave’s since he really shouldn’t eat maple syrup). I served it warm with a sprinkle of powdered sugar over it too, and I used a real maple syrup – if you use the real stuff, it takes very little to give you loads of flavor. Low in calorie, not too high in fat, and utterly delicious. If you make it with Splenda it goes down significantly in calories and carbs.
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A year ago: Mace Cake

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This is what I’m cooking up today. We’re celebrating St. Patrick’s Day today. There’s still time for you to create a celebratory dinner with corned beef, cabbage, onion and carrots using my favorite recipe, from my friend Linda. I wrote it up previously. But once I have a recipe that works, I’m not likely to change.

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A year ago: Fumi Chinese Chicken Salad

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