Have you ever had jicama? (Pronounced HEE-kah-ma.) It’s such an odd thing (actually it’s a root, the only edible thing on the jicama plant, as the leaves and seeds are toxic, so I read). To some people it’s simply so unusual, they won’t try it. Or eat it. It has an odd texture – crispy sort of – like a water chestnut. It crunches like them, anyway. It contains a lot of water, so it stays moist for a long time. Some foodies liken the taste to a cross between a water chestnut and a pear. I don’t find the pear in it, since to me the taste of a jicama is non-descript. But it adds a lot to a veggie platter. And the best part about jicama is that it doesn’t turn color or get limp – even after hours. Like avocado, or carrots and celery, or some other veggies. And it’s extremely low in calorie too.

You can cut it into different shapes. It can be used in sushi rolls, a cole slaw, or as in crunchy little wisps in a sandwich wrap (these ideas I got from a Cooking Light article). I have one recipe for a jicama slaw that is wonderfully flavorful with citrus and citrus juice. I haven’t posted that recipe, but maybe I’ll need to do that. Perhaps I’ll make it with the leftover jicama I have on hand.

Here in California we see (and use) jicama in salads sometimes. I buy it now and then. Usually I can’t manage to finish a whole jicama before it goes bad, so I try to buy small ones – if they’re available. Jicama comes from Mexico (where they call it a yam bean or a Mexican turnip).

My favorite way to eat jicama, though, is this one – what you see in the photo above. You simply roll the jicama sticks in some lime juice (or lemon if that’s all you  have) and then in some chili powder. Don’t use hot chili powder, just regular flavorful type – grocery store type is fine. That’s it. Stand them up in a bowl and serve. You don’t want to serve this with a dip – it doesn’t need anything at all to serve with it.
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A year ago: Orange Jalapeno Vinaigrette

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That photo sure looks odd, doesn’t it? You think that’s a roasted avocado pit, perhaps? But, fear not, it’s a luscious sweet treat instead – a peach half perched atop a Madeleine, glistening with a vanilla-and chamomile-scented syrup.

The recipe here was from the vanilla class I attended last week. The chef thought it came from a Nancy Silverton cookbook. I couldn’t find it online, nor anything close to it, so I couldn’t verify its origin. Nevertheless, it’s a very nice use of either peaches or plums (or apricots, for that matter, but they’re such a tender fruit I’m not sure they’d hold up). The fruit is roasted in a sugar-vanilla-chamomile syrup until tender and golden. This time of year we used imported peaches from the Southern Hemisphere. Meanwhile, you make a cookie dough using olive oil, and bake them in tartlet molds (big enough to hold the fruit), or in Madeleine pans, coated lightly with additional olive oil. Unfortunately, at the class, the instructor had forgotten to get the chamomile for the syrup, so we ate it without. I’d try it with, however, since it sounds like such a gentle combination.

Once everything is baked, you put one or two Madeleines on a dessert plate, scoop some of the syrup over them, then place a couple of fruit halves alongside (I put it on top just for the sake of the photograph) and serve with sweetened whipped cream. Now, I don’t happen to have a Madeleine pan. Nor do I have tartlet pans that will hold 1/4 cup. So if I’m going to make these here at home, I’ll need to make an investment. Or borrow the Madeleine pan from my friend, Cherrie. The latter sounds like the best bet!
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A year ago: A book review (Alice Waters bio)

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At the cooking class the other night at The Blackmarket Bakery, we were given a recipe for a simple fruit crumble. Made with pears. The recipe calls for fresh pears, and I think the dish would have been infinitely better made with fresh pears. Alas, we were given canned pears instead. Nevertheless, it was VERY good. The combo of dried cranberries (soaked in apple juice) and the oats, made for a nice chewy topping. And do look at the calories and fat in this recipe (they’re low). Another good reason to try it. This recipe is very easy – honest. Ideally serve it warm, with some vanilla ice cream or slightly sweetened whipped cream. The recipe came from Taste of Home. I’d make this again.
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A year ago: Coq au Vin (Quick & Easy)

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My friend Cathey asked me if I’d like to attend a cooking class with her about vanilla. Hmm. Sounded interesting. Having just read an article in my fav magazine, Cooks Illustrated, about it, I thought I’d learn a lot about the different kinds of vanilla, and why a baker would use one vs. another. If you look in my baking cupboard I must have four different kinds of vanilla. Including the beans themselves too. So, surely I needed some help determining the best choice(s) and reducing my vanilla kitchen footprint.

The class, offered at The Blackmarket Bakery in Irvine, was a group of eight. The bakery, owned by Rachel Klemek, offers occasional classes, mostly in all-things related to baking (candy, cookies, cakes, fondant, puff pastry). Mostly aimed at more novice cooks, or ones who are into fancy cakes, decorating, etc. The classes are all hands-on, meaning the students prepare all the food. At this class we paired up in twos and used the bakery’s professional kitchen to prepare all the vanilla-related recipes Rachel had selected.

Having never cooked in a professional kitchen, I found that part interesting and fun. Some of the cooking things were out and ready for us, but not all things, so Rachel scurried to locate different pans, whisks, bowls, etc. She teaches classes at one of our local community colleges too, so she’s used to keeping an eagle eye on students as they work at the high BTU range, or remove trays of things from the commercial ovens.

Even as a food blogger, I wouldn’t ever post a recipe I hadn’t either made myself or eaten personally. But Rachel was fearless as she gave us a few recipes she’d never made or tasted before. One was a dismal failure (a vanilla souffle), so after starting it, we had to toss it out. Cathey and I started over with Rachel’s familiar Cointreau souffle (substituting vanilla) recipe, which worked perfectly.

Actually, the only thing I learned about vanilla was from a booklet Rachel passed around from Nielsen-Massey (vanilla producers) which says that vanilla bean paste is a vanilla essence (extract) enhanced with “spent” beans. Beans that have already given their essence to something else, and added only for appearance. What a surprise. Guess I won’t be buying any of that stuff again.

In the Cook’s Illustrated article (the article was not anything to do with the class, I’m just sharing it because I learned more about vanilla from the article than from the class) they did a taste test of vanillas mixed with milk. For most cooking, the magazine’s panel thought imitation extract (made with a variety of iffy products related to coal tar – does that sound yukky, or what?) was just fine. The magazine doesn’t recommend the paste or powder (the latter a “don’t bother” product), but did recommend the following (clockwise from top left):

Photos from the individual company’s websites

1. McCormick Pure Vanilla Extract (grocery stores everywhere)
2. Rodelle Pure Vanilla Extract (some specialty markets)
3. Nielsen-Massey Madagascar Bourbon Pure Vanilla Extract (at high end markets)
4. And (the “Best Buy”) Gold Medal Imitation Vanilla Extract (only available at www.cfsauer.com that I could find)

In the vanilla class, Rachel only had vanilla bean paste to use (two types, though), so we didn’t get to do any taste differences. In fact, we didn’t even know which brand we students used, and it wasn’t discussed at the end, unfortunately. I’ll share a few of the recipes in coming days. Cathey and I made three of the recipes: a pear and cranberry vanilla crumble, a roasted peach with vanilla olive oil madeleine, and the vanilla souffle. The other students made a vanilla and white chocolate bread pudding with creme anglaise, vanilla pillows (a cornmeal type of cookie), a rum-enhanced chocolate sauce, and a vanilla creme brulee.

A year ago: Almond Crusted Orange Roughy

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After I baked these brownies, I went to my recipe files to make a comparison of this recipe (from Culinary Concoctions by Peabody blog) to my old standby, Heavenly Cream Cheese Brownies, a recipe that dates back to the 1960’s. Sure enough, they’re really similar except for the Baileys. Peabody’s recipe has more bar chocolate and chocolate chips, the Bailey’s, of course, and she added a Bailey’s glaze on top too.

We had invited friends over for dinner because Bob is renovating their kitchen, and Peggy just struggles to create things to cook when the kitchen is in such a mess. They were SO happy to go out. So, even though we had a 5-hour power outage at our house yesterday (some kind of maintenance thing), as soon as the power was turned back on I quick-like-a-bunny started dinner. Made a slow-cooker tamale pie, which had just enough time to do its thing. I had some leftover veggies from the other night which were sufficient for nibbling before dinner, made a big green salad with everything but the kitchen sink in it, and I had just read Peabody’s post about these brownies. I had the cream cheese, had the Bailey’s, so quick-like I made them too.

The swirled brownie batter in the pan

You make two batters – the vanilla and Bailey’s one, and a larger amount of chocolate/brownie one. They’re layered in a pan, then lightly swirled with a knife to mix them up a little. Oh-so very pretty, I think. Then once they’re baked and cooled a little, you add a Bailey’s glaze on top, cool completely, cut and serve!

These are RICH. And SWEET. As I said, they have more chocolate than in the older recipe, so I’ve reduced the amount of sugar in both batters below. But overall they’re delicious. If you’re a Bailey’s fan, you’ll adore them. I served them with just a little slurp of Bailey’s on the side. Yum. If I’d had vanilla ice cream I’d have served that with it too.
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A year ago: Potato & Onion Cakes (a side dish)

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When I grew up, as I’ve mentioned here before, casseroles were the “rule of the day.” Nearly everyone made them. Even for entertaining. And because my parents were products of the Great Depression (unlike the nearly-great-depression we’re on the brink of right now), frugality was the name of the game in my mother’s cooking. And she frequently made tamale pie. I hunted through my mother’s recipes trying to find her version, and did find a couple, but can’t tell if they are hers. Both are very similar to this one, just baked in a casserole for an hour at 350, instead of made in a slow cooker.

But, since I’d just read a recipe over at Al Dente (a blog), made in a slow cooker, and with a tube of that ready-made polenta, I thought aha. I’ll make that version. Ever since I read the recipe a week ago, my mouth has been watering.  The recipe is from a new cookbook: Slow & Easy: Fast-Fix Recipes for Your Electric Slow Cooker by Natalie Haughton. I don’t own the book, but may need to because this was really good.

This recipe is really quite simple – the only cooking you have to do is to brown the ground beef and onion. The rest is merely layering the ingredients in the slow cooker and setting it to simmer on low for 4 to 4 1/2 hours. Done.

Since there isn’t any chemistry involved in making a casserole (like there is with baking a cake) I, of course, had to change things just a bit. The necessary ingredients are all there – ground beef, corn, olives and cornmeal (polenta). Oh, and tomatoes too. I added some celery flakes (a Penzey’s product I had to try) and some dried red bell pepper (I didn’t have a green pepper on hand). I opened a can of what I thought were yellow tomatoes, only to find they were yellow peppers, so I added some of those to the mix as well. And I had to add a bit of garlic too.

What makes this so easy is that you layer the polenta slices in the bottom of the slow cooker, pour in the meat mixture and add more polenta slices on top (my slow cooker is wide, so there were only a couple of them to go on the top. At the end of the slow-cook time, you add a whole mound of grated cheddar cheese, mostly cover the slow cooker to melt the cheese, then serve it with sour cream and chopped cilantro on top as you spoon it onto a plate. A VERY easy dinner, and it was delicious, that’s all I can say. Reminded me of my childhood. My mother’s version had cornbread on the top, as I recall, but I think I liked this polenta-on-the-bottom-style better. More moist, for sure. This would make a GREAT family meal. It’s got kid-friendly food in it, I think.
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A year ago: Warm Bean Brie Dip

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The other night I took a veggie platter to the home of some friends, Lucy & Wayne, who live in Pasadena (an hour’s drive from where we live). Lucy is the penultimate hostess – with the most exquisite table settings, and glorious food. Maybe when I grow up I’ll entertain as seamlessly as she does. She’s never flustered. I admire that.

The dinner the other night was a belated Valentine’s celebration. All couples who know one another well. Each person was asked to bring a poem, short story, (joke, perhaps), or some personal story to tell about love. We also shared the stories about how each couple met, which was very fun. Lucy’s dinner was based around food in poetry. There were 3 courses served at the table (my veggies were served in the living room with glasses of champagne prior to sitting down at their beautiful table). With each course, Wayne read a bit of poetry.

The first one was a children’s poem which included something about mincemeat. So Lucy served a delicious, warmed pate with her homemade mincemeat and a phyllo dough “purse” sitting on top (along with a really special apple cider ice wine from Quebec). And it was all topped with watercress and a tasty vinaigrette too. The second course was a poem about pigs, so it was a fabulous stuffed pork roast with baked cabbage and golden raisins, nestled on a mound of fluffy mashed potatoes and a clear gravy drizzled over it all (along with an Oregon Pinot Noir). The third course (dessert) was a poem about blackberries, so we had an incredible 5-layer blackberry cake with blackberry curd (Lucy made that too) and fresh blackberries (that served with 28-year old Port from Portugal). All through the evening, then, the different couples shared stories, jokes, wedding photos. It was a very fun evening. We all had some good belly laughs.

For us, I’d found a little poem in our local paper, which I gave to Dave to read. It’s ever-so-cute. Our newspaper had requested submissions of romantic text messages from readers. Be sure to read it all the way through, and forget about the fact that it’s corny . . .

When you and I are far apart,
Can sorrow break our tender hearts,
I really love you, yes I do,
Sleep is sweet when I dream of you,
All you are is a blooming rose,
Night is here so I must close.
With care read the first word in each line
You will there a question find . . .

Get it, huh, huh, huh? Above published in the Orange County Register, February 14, 2009, and submitted by Donna Johnson, from Long Beach.

When it was MY turn to share, I read a poem from a favorite book of mine: Other People’s Love Letters: 150 Letters You Were Never Meant To See. It’s a precious book, although most of the letters in it could not be repeated here as they’re a bit too risque. The letters, notes and email messages covered a wide range of years (as early as World War II), and are reproduced in the book on whatever they were written on. Lined paper, pink paper, brown paper bags, all myriad of writing surfaces. What I read was a long, LONG list of things a woman loved about her husband. Very sweet, poignant, heartfelt, adorable. Little everyday things, but a very special list. In the addendum to the book, the editor, Bill Shapiro, shared that a few days after the Valentine list was given to her husband, she was killed in an automobile accident. If you’re intrigued by the book idea, go to the Other People’s Love Letters website.

So, let’s get back to food, shall we? Usually when I make this dunk/dip, it’s made with mayo plus the tomatoes, green onions and bacon, but I decided to make a modification – since this was going to be served with veggies instead of crackers or pita chips, I thought the ratio of mayo to tomatoes was too high. So I made it with some light sour cream added. I used some mayo, but added a bit more sour cream to the mixture. And now that I use my alligator chopper so much, I decided to make this without using the food processor. The finely minced tomatoes out of the chopper were the perfect size. So everything was just hand minced, combined and chilled for a few hours before serving.

I served everything in ramekins, standing up as best I could make them. The asparagus and haricot verts were in short, clear glasses. And I put the dunk/dip in a ramekin on TOP of another ramekin turned upside down so the dunk/dip was elevated (looked nicer and made it easier for people to dip the veggies into it). On my huge platter I served fresh asparagus (those spears were eaten first, I think), cucumber slices, haricot verts, radishes (the dip was hard to scoop with them, I must admit), fennel slices, celery, sugar snap peas and carrots. I also served jicama, but I’ll write a separate post about that.
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If a BLT combination is a favorite for you, check out this recipe for BLT Salad that’s one of my favorites.
A year ago: Armenian Parsley Walnut Salad

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When we were out at our desert house last week we were invited to some friends and I offered to bring soup (they did all the rest). I have a cookbook collection at our desert house, but they’re mostly my not-so-favorite ones. With hundreds of cookbooks in my collection I surely should stock the other house with a bit more variety. But anyway, I have a couple of soup books there, and I turned to Lee Bailey’s Soup Meals. Sure enough, found a recipe that would work – fairly low carb and healthy to boot.

Here's the escarole, barely cooked at this point

This soup is a beef brothy kind of one – redolent with oodles of onions (too many, actually, so I’ve altered the recipe), mushrooms, escarole, and boosted with beef concentrate. We liked the soup. Very flavorful. We bought a pack of New York steaks at Costco – for that’s the only way I’d consider using such beauties in a SOUP, for goodness’ sake! I doubled the recipe and used three. You could easily use stew beef in this (and cook it much longer, of course), but don’t add the escarole until the last couple of minutes. If you did use a tougher cut of meat, I’d also add some more carrots, celery and onions in the last 10 minutes so you’d have some veggies that are still toothsome.

The first night we ate this we just sprinkled the top with grated Parmesan (not in the recipe). The soup was good, but not sensational. Our friends served some fresh bread right out of the bread machine. I had divided the soup in half, so with the leftovers I broiled some Parmesan on baguette slices and floated them on top of the soup. Also added some more Penzey’s beef soup base. What a difference! The Parmesan is absolutely that umami taste – it made this soup really, really good. If you don’t remember about umami, click HERE for my post about it. The toasts also gave the soup added texture.

The steaks, cut into cubes, are just browned in a separate pan and only added to the soup during the last 2-3 minutes. Having learned with the first serving of it, the second time around I cut up the browned (only) steak cubes even smaller (each 1-inch cube in about 4 pieces) and dropped them into the soup a mere minute or two before serving. If you add it earlier the steak definitely goes from tender to tough. And you certainly don’t want to do that with New York steak! Don’t be put off by the number of ingredients – it really comes together fairly easily. The most tedious part was slicing and chopping the mushrooms and onions.
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A year ago: White Lady (a fancy drink)

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I know, I know, I know. This blog is mostly about food. But I read an interesting piece in the PC Magazine Digital (the first subscription mag that I’ve started receiving in digital format only – no longer mailed to me in hard copy).

The article, written by John Dvorak, was just riveting. What caught my eye first was the title – about Error 404. Now to you who read this blog for its food content, you might never know what a 404 is! It’s when a link on a website doesn’t work. When it doesn’t work, most websites have a built-in page that announces to you that it’s a error 404. It’s a page template that pops up if anybody accesses something where the chain is broken. So, okay, what’s that got to do with anything, you ask?

John Dvorak was citing some examples of how 404 is going to plague our lives in coming decades (or whatever further error code, that’s currently called a 404). He told the story about reading a very interesting editorial on the London Times’ website within days of 9/11, and had sent the link to lots and lots of people. Was still sending the link to people recently. Then, boom, suddenly the link is an error 404. The Times (one would assume) finally thought it was time to take off lots of stuff from their server. It’s 7+ years later, so why not? John lamented that he’d never printed a hard copy of that editorial. Then, he also mentioned trying to contact a book publisher (I presume, about the use of some quote) from a particular book printed in 1964. The company, the publisher, is no longer in business. Who owns the rights to the book? He doesn’t know. Nobody seems to know. (Quoting from that book could be an iffy situaion if he’s an ethical writer, and I think he is.)

So, taking this one step further, he projects that in 10 years school children (at least here in the U.S.) will be reading all their course material, textbooks, etc. on a Kindle. Books, as a hard copy, won’t even exist. Will those books, or other digital books even be accessible 10 years later? How would people in 2050 quote from a digital book written in 2009, or 2019? Will people be ABLE to access any of the digital media currently in use? My question, how will the Library of Congress keep digital books, I wonder? If you’re interested in the general subject, I think you can get to Dvorak’s editorial – at least I was provided with the link to it.

That got me to thinking about the archiving of so MUCH material that exists only on the internet. Who is keeping all this stuff? (In actuality, it exists on servers and computers ’round the world, computers that will age, deteriorate and die at some point, or are stored with companies that will fold, or go out of business.) In the year 2109, will there even be a record of what was on the internet today (probably not – only things deemed “important” by some people). Printing out hard-copy pages from the internet today – – – in 100 years those pages will be disintegrating. Saving files to a CD – well, will computers in 100 years be able to read a CD? Probably not since people can’t even use 5-inch floppies anymore. Remember those? When I’m gone, my blog will be nothing but internet dust. Even for my great grandchildren who will likely be the only people interested in reading it.

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This is not a new recipe to this blog. But I finally got around to taking a photo of it. I’d posted this back in 2007 when I had a fractured foot and was posting recipes, with internet photos or no photos at all.

So, my hubby and I are out at our house in the California desert (it was about 65 yesterday, gorgeous sunshine), and last night after a very light dinner of leftovers, I was craving something sweet. Since we’ve been renting our house here some this season, I knew there wasn’t much in the cupboards, but aha, there WAS a German chocolate cake mix. Sure enough, a few chocolate chips, and pecans in the freezer (the recipe calls for walnuts, but pecans work too). And yes, I had cinnamon, eggs, oil. Took all of about 10 minutes to mix it up (well, maybe 15 since I spilled nearly the whole bag of pecans all over the kitchen floor) and I popped it in the oven.

You can go to the post I did back in ’07 for the full recipe. This is EASY! REALLY EASY! Cake mix, oil, eggs, chocolate chips, nuts, cinnamon and sugar. Done. Makes a 9×13 pan full, great for taking to a potluck. Or camping. Or a picnic. A family favorite I’ve been making since the 1960’s. Nothing like the typical German Chocolate Cake with coconut, etc.

Here are some photos of our desert yesterday when my DH and I toodled around in our golf cart within our complex (1 mile square, 2 18-hole golf courses).

A view toward the west, of snow-covered San Gorgonio peeking through the clouds.

Another view – lantana in the foreground, an ocotillo just beginning to bloom on the right edge, ponds in the background just begging to swallow your golf balls

Would you believe petunias are in full bloom here? The risk of frost is past, so they’re safe.

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