The actors in this three-act play:
DH [Dear Husband] and Carolyn [his wife]

Scene One
[Couple talking together in the car.]
[DH] “What are we having for dinner tonight, honey?
[Carolyn] “The leftover pork tenderloin.
[DH] “Oh good, I loved that. With that good sauce? What else?
[Carolyn] “Cardoons.
[DH, with alarmed voice] “WHAT? Car what?
[Carolyn] “Car-DOONS. They’re also called Car-dohn too.
[Fade out.]

Scene Two
[A few hours later in the couple’s kitchen. Carolyn is standing by a cutting board with an odd looking green celery-like thing on the board and a big knife, along with a vegetable peeler. She moves to the sink to wash the big green thing.]
[DH] “What’s that?
[Carolyn] “Cardoon.
[DH] “Huh? Car-what? What’s that?
[Carolyn, with definite exasperation in her voice] “Honey, we had this conversation a few hours ago. I told you. It’s a vegetable.
[DH] “It looks like celery.
[Carolyn] “It does, but it’s actually a thistle, uhm, part of the thistle family like artichokes, but it looks like overgrown celery.
[DH] “So, what are you going to do with it?
[Carolyn] “I’m removing all the fibrous strings on it, cutting it up and putting it in acidulated water so it won’t turn brown, then I’m simmering it for awhile. Then I’m going to toss it with a vinaigrette dressing. Supposedly it tastes kind of like artichoke hearts, but it’s kind of tough so I have to cook it awhile.
[DH] “Okay. Like artichoke hearts? Hmm. That sounds good.
[Fade out.]

Scene Three
[It’s nightime now and DH is standing at the kitchen sink washing dishes and Carolyn brings the dishes from the dining room table to the sink to be washed. She also brings the bowl of green stuff that kind of looks like a gray celery salad to the sink.]
[Carolyn] “Do you want any more of the cardoons? [awkward pause] Will you eat any of these tomorrow as leftovers?
[DH after long pause] “Uh, no.
[Carolyn] “Me, either.
[Fade out as DH throws bowl full of gray cardoons down the garbage disposal.]
The end

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Oh, sorry for the fuzzy picture here. I only took one photo . . .

If you’re even the least faint of heart with a long recipe, you might want to glance right on by this one. But it’s delicious. Your guests will say wonderful things, but there is a bit of prep to this one. The kind of recipe you definitely would not do for a quick weeknight dinner! This is certainly a special occasion kind of dinner entrée. Nothing about it is hard; trust me. But, time, yes, it does take a bit. You’ll be rewarded, though, with a recipe that is eye appealing and delicious.

Carissa Giacalone, the Food Network Star finalist, prepared this at the class last week. She made a full meal, from appetizer through dessert. This was the entree. She explained that she just hates mint jelly and mint sauce, so she came up with a method of giving lamb the mint it needs but without making it part of a sweet relish or side dish. I liked her idea, although I do like mint sauce (not jelly) when it’s made with fresh mint. So, there’s this mint and basil dry pesto that gets pressed onto the lamb after it’s been browned, then it’s topped with some Panko crumbs that provide some crunch. And once the lamb is baked and sliced, you pour some red wine and port reduction sauce around the plate. The reduction takes awhile – maybe about 30 minutes altogether, but is well worth the effort.
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With a number of butternut squash soups as favorites in my repertoire (well, two, actually) I looked askance at this new recipe as an intruder. As if I were to say “no, I don’t need another butternut squash soup, thank you.” Well, I hang my head – this is one great soup. Different than my other two (the Roasted Butternut Squash Soup and the Butternut Squash Soup with Jalapeno & Ginger). This one, though, has a very nice subtle flavor – no strong flavors trying to vie for one another. It’s the crispy, fried pancetta that makes this soup, though.

During the cooking class last week with Carissa Giacalone, she talked about her cooking style. She uses a lot of classic recipes and rounds them out with her own little twists. She specifically talked about how she likes to combine different textures in nearly every dish she makes. And this one is no different. And she talked about how important salt can be in a any recipe. (She thinks most home cooks undersalt everything.) The soup is a combination of smooth and chunky (because you don’t puree it completely) and a combination of soft soup with crispy, crunchy pancetta sprinkles to decorate the top of the served soup. Carissa also topped it with a deep-fried sage leaf. Likely I won’t bother with that step, as nice as it is and was. Deep fried sage doesn’t have a lot of flavor anyway (well, in my book at least). And it’s extremely fragile, even in the cooking process. I’ll include it in the recipe below, though, in case you are willing to take the time. Fried sage doesn’t keep but a day, so it’s not like you can save it for a week or two. It’s make-it-and-serve-it tuit suite.
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When I attended the cooking class last week with Phillis Carey, my friend Linda and I weren’t all that “wowed” by this recipe. But a few days later, at home, with a thawing pork tenderloin on hand, rather than go hunting for a different preparation, I made this anyway. At the class, Linda and I both liked the sauce (and Phillis said you could also serve it with turkey). The pork I was served at the class was a bit overdone. Pork tenderloin is a very finicky piece of meat. It has to be cooked “just right,” or it’s almost unpalatable. There’s so little fat in the meat, you can’t do much to retain moisture so it’s vitally important it be removed from the oven before it goes over the hill to dry.

Phillis’ recipe says to oil, herb coat the meat, marinate it for an hour or overnight, brown the tenderloin in a bit of oil, and finally roast at 400 F. Well, I’d just gotten through reading an article in Cooking Light about pork, and it said tenderloin should be roasted at 500 F. So I went with the higher temp. It took 20 minutes, and I didn’t even brown the meat first (too lazy). The sauce came together relatively quickly. FYI: I combined all the sauce liquids in the pan (the original recipe says you do it in two steps) and added the grapes partway through. Then added the Morello cherries at the end just to heat through. My sauce was a little thin, so I ended up adding a butter/flour roux (a tiny bit) to thicken it up a bit.

According to the Cooking Light story, pork tenderloin should be served at an internal temperature of 155 F. So, using a probe I removed the meat at 150 F. and let it sit for about 5 minutes before slicing and serving. It had reached 155 in the ensuing minutes. The meat was pink throughout – every inch of it was faintly tinged pink. Perfect. As moist as tenderloin can be. And the sauce was a really delicious complement to the pork. Not so overpowering that you couldn’t taste the meat, but tasty enough on its own that you wanted more of it with every bite. And the recipe still isn’t a “wow” recipe, but it was very good.

The grapes are cooked. I happened to have had some extremely large red seedless grapes (another reason why I wanted to make the recipe). I cut them in half and they were nicely cooked at about 25 minutes in the broth. They were removed while I finished up the sauce, then added them back in with the Morellos. Morellos are a very tart red cherry. Until Trader Joe’s started carrying them in a jar, I don’t think I’d ever heard of them. You probably could make a dessert with them, but the sauce was a great use for them. Trader Joe’s has had them on the shelves for several years, so I guess other people like them too.

My recipe below shows most of the changes I made to the recipe. Be sure to use a regular pan (not a nonstick) to brown the meat. Only a regular pan will create the little brown bits (called fond) on the bottom of the pan, that you want added to the sauce for extra flavor. Using a nonstick pan is much harder to get that meat caramelization anyway. I also didn’t have any rosemary, so used sage and thyme for the herb rub.
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It was some years ago I was reading some recipes at egullet.com. And I ran across this recipe. Naturally, the title gave me pause. Huh? Well, if you click over to egullet you can read the story yourself. And it was the story behind it that got me to print out the recipe at all. But you don’t have to – here is what it says . . .

Linda was married for many years to an utter and total cad. When they had been married for about 10 years, her MIL [mother-in-law] shared with her The Totally Secret Family Recipe for some da—ed salad dressing with the admonition “this recipe will NEVER go outside the family; do you understand.” Actually, the dressing was quite good (a lot of anchovies and garlic).

Anyway, some years after the sharing of said recipe, the Total and Utter Cad got worse and worse and worse and it was divorce court (he had 9 other women on the leash). Lots of fiscal stuff involved, and actually, the Total and Utter Cad ended up going to jail (fraud), but his parents still blamed her.

The first thing she did was distribute said recipe to every person she had ever met. She said it felt almost better than the day in court.

Linda’s friend wrote up the recipe and published it on egullet. So, it’s all these years later and I’d never gotten around to making this dressing . . . until the other day. I had all the ingredients (well, I didn’t have tarragon vinegar, but I used basil vinegar instead). You do need to use sturdy lettuce for this salad – the dressing is very thick – in the best sense of the word I tell you it’s kind of like sludge in its viscosity. I actually added just a tiny slurp more oil to the blender because I could hardly get it to . . . well, blend. Pour it into a container and let it chill overnight. Do not use it immediately because the flavor won’t develop until the next day. Take the dressing out of the refrigerator at least 20 minutes before you need to use it. It’s kind of hard to know how much dressing to use – I start off with a scoop of it (smaller than I think I need) and toss and toss and toss and add more once I taste it. You kind of have to mash the lettuce around to get the dressing to spread. But it’s worth the effort. We liked it. I haven’t tried it with low-fat cream cheese . . . might be an idea to see whether it made any difference. Anyway, if you try it, think about Linda, who got her revenge!
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Although I don’t eat or prepare potato casseroles very often, when I do, I fall in lo-v-e with potatoes, again, every time. Not that I ever fell out of l-o-v-e with them, but because we now know they’re a high glycemic carb, and because I don’t work out vigorously enough or often enough, or have a svelte figure that can afford the carbs, when I do eat them they’re extraordinarily special. As with this casserole. And these, with a delicious Béchamel sauce to bind them together with the not-overwhelming goat cheese in between – well, what else can I tell you other than this dish is just sublime. The panko crumb topping was also a good texture foil – don’t eliminate that part to save time. Given the choice, I could easily have eaten this dish as an entire dinner. You’ll be tempted too, I guarantee!

The recipe (and the photo above that I snapped) came from a cooking class I went to last week. The first class I attened was taught by Carissa Giacalone, a TV Food Network Star finalist, and a graduate of Le Cordon Bleu. She obviously knows her French preparations, this being one. What I learned at the class was that the potatoes, as for any scalloped potato casserole, should be parboiled before assembling. I’ve never known any other way but layering raw potatoes and never knowing for sure when the potatoes are done. Now I know why. She peeled and sliced the potatoes first, then put them in a huge pot of water and cooked them until they were half cooked. Once drained, they were set aside while the rest of the prep occurred. A traditional Béchamel sauce, some goat cheese, some caramelized onions and a panko topping, and a dreamy dish you have made.

Every single solitary morsel and calorie is worth it. Try it you should, then plan to take a good healthy walk the next day!
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Files: MasterCook 5+ and MasterCook 14 (click link to open MC – 14 contains photo)

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At the cooking class the other day, I glanced at the list of recipes and certainly didn’t think this one would be the standout of both classes, but it was. It isn’t all that unusual, there isn’t a long list of ingredients and it didn’t take all that long to make. Aren’t those the best kind of recipes to get and make? Easy, quick and yummy delicious to boot!

Although the recipe, by Phillis Carey, is made here for shrimp, it could also be made with scallops (with some bacon added, she suggested). I’ll be making this soon because the flavor was just melt-in-the-mouth. The orzo was smooth and slippery, there was just enough creaminess to make you think you were eating the rice-style risotto, and the broccolini was a perfect side. You can make the orzo ahead, and then it’s just a matter of roasting the veg and combining the rest and you’re done. Definitely make more than needed, as you’ll crave the leftovers.
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Alfred Hitchcock had declared his profession “producer” when a customs officer could not contain his curiosity and further questioned him.
“What do you produce?” the officer inquired.
Gooseflesh,” Hitchcock replied.

Hitchcock, whose gourmandising produced his own flesh, too, was once a guest at a dinner party where food was hardly in profusion. While serving the coffee, his hostess said,
“I do hope you will dine here again, Mr. Hitchcock.”
“By all means,” he replied. “Let’s start right now.”
  . . . from The Ravenous Muse, by Karen Elizabeth Gordon
  . . . photo from networkedweekend.com

In time for Halloween – the temperatures are finally abating today. Good thing since goblin and ghost costumes don’t generally come in summer weight. Yesterday I spent the entire day in San Diego. First I attended a cooking class taught by Carissa Giacalone, one of the finalists in the TV Food Network’s “The Next Food Network Star” back a few years ago. She lives in San Diego and has a catering business. I’ll have several recipes to share from that class. Maybe starting tomorrow. Then, since I was already there, I met up with my friend Linda from Carlsbad, and she and I attended a Phillis Carey class in the evening. There were 52 people in that class! Whew. Phillis prepared a very ambitious menu (four meat entrees and a dessert). I’ll be sharing some of those recipes as well in coming days. I took a bunch of photos so you’ll get to see what all the dishes look like. So, stay tuned.

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Until I decided to write up this recipe, I can’t say that I knew much about Auguste Escoffier, other than he was a famous French chef. And that he wrote a cookbook or two which are considered sacrosanct by lots of chefs and foodies in France and abroad. He lived from 1846 to 1935 and spent his life in the French food arena, beginning when he was apprenticed to his uncle’s restaurant in Nice at the ripe age of 12. He revolutionized (streamlined) the running of top-drawer kitchens, and implemented new techniques of canning when he was the Chef de Cuisine for the French Army during one of France’s wars. So there’s your little food history lesson of the day.

I’ll just comment briefly that as I was growing up (I think I’ve mentioned it here before) both grandmothers always served lots of pickles and relishes with meals. They likely did lots of canning since they grew their own vegetables, so they had lots of cucumbers, tomatoes and peppers to use up every season. But then, pickles and relishes were just de rigueur. My mother served her fair share of them too, and I can’t say that I was all that enamored with them as a child. Actually, salsa is a similar kind of condiment, and I certainly eat plenty of THAT. Once I ventured into making fruit salsas (my mango or pineapple salsa being a particular family favorite), I must have reacquainted my palate to the kind of sweet and sour mingling that goes on with pickles and relishes. I also have that Mexican onion relish that is so good too. And remember my write-up about the piquante peppers from South Africa? They have a very similar taste, although this pepper condiment has many more layers of flavor with the addition of onions, garlic and spices. The South African peppers are just pickled somehow.

My fellow blogger, Luisa, the Wednesday Chef, wrote up this recipe, having read it in the Los Angeles Times (no longer available online). In her post she used many, many superlatives. I usually stand up and notice when bloggers use words like fabulous, fantastic, can’t keep my spoon out of them. That kind of language. Since I had some leftover meatloaf (obviously cold), this recipe seemed like a cinchy combination. I had everything on hand except the red bell peppers, and that was easily rectified.

This recipe is SIMPLE. Really. It took about 20 minutes to chop and cook, then it bubbled away on the stove for an hour or so. I had golden raisins instead of dark, but that was the only substitution I made in this recipe. I didn’t weigh the peppers – I used 4 peppers. The picture above is the combination of ingredients to make the peppers. Nothing all that unusual. And the second photo shows the spices used. They made a very attractive pile on my cutting board, so I decided to photograph them for you. The only thing a bit different here is the freshly grated nutmeg. I almost never use jarred pre-ground nutmeg. The flavor of the fresh is just so much better. Years and years ago I bought a nutmeg grinder (less than $10 then) that has served me well all these years.

The verdict? Fabulous. This relish would be wonderful with just any kind of meat (roasts, chops) and even chicken. Even some kinds of fish. So often leftover meat from a pork roast, for instance, loses that juiciness once it’s cooled down and chilled, so you need something to moisten every bite. I can see this as a great condiment in sandwiches too. I can’t wait to try this on a turkey or meatloaf sandwich. I don’t know that I’ll be eating it straight out of a bowl because it does have a vinegary sharpness. Muffled by the sugar, though. Overall: delicious. And did I tell you it was EASY?

This little note is being added nearly a month later . . . I still have these peppers in the refrigerator. They’re fine. Just fine. I served it recently as a side with grilled sausages for dinner. All that vinegar in them  must keep them preserved well.
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Files: MasterCook 5+ and MasterCook 14 (click link to open recipe in MC)

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This photo was taken quite a few months ago. You can’t see much of the horizon (the Pacific Ocean, out there about 10 miles), but in the far distance is Catalina Island, and off on the right side is Palos Verdes, a ridge of low hills right along the coast northwest of Long Beach.>

We’re experiencing a week of warm temperatures. Again. Usually I say to myself that by Halloween we’ve finally cooled down to Fall temps. We’ve had some cooler days, but then it heats right back up again. It was close to 90 yesterday. At least the humidity is low, so we don’t feel it as much. We’ve had some fires in Southern California, but nothing near us, thank goodness. But then, over the last couple of years nearly everything that could burn within 10-20 miles of us has already burned.

As many issues as we have had with our property (house) in the last year, our jacuzzi developed a new leak. Actually two. These are the 3rd and 4th ones in about 3+ months. Yesterday and the day before the leak detection people repaired them (the major one was a copper pipe about 20 feet away, near the filtration equipment), and they had to dig down about 6 feet, including jackhammering about a 2.5 x 8 foot length of cement walkway. The second one was near the jacuzzi itself. Sigh. We are so gosh-darned tired of fixing these leaks. Not including being tired of having to PAY for the repairs.  But then, our house is 40 years old. And, if we’ve found and repaired these two leaks, that means it’s less water that is draining out into the soil on our hill. One of these leaks, probably a slow leak,  may have been there for a very long time undetected. The bigger one – well, we knew we had a problem when the jacuzzi was losing 3-5 inches of water a day. Isn’t home ownership wonderful?

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