What fun . . . as I was reading through my July issue of Bon Appetit, there was a recipe for choc chip cookies (CCC’s) with tart cherries AND Cherry Heering. What a combo, I thought! Took less than 24 hours for me to decide I had to try it. As luck would have it, though, I didn’t have (and didn’t want to use) white choc chips, so I substituted some macadamia nuts instead. My cherries also weren’t the tart type, so I reduced the sugar by a little instead. My bottle of Cherry Heering is at least 20 years old, but it tastes just fine, thank you.

On my choc chip cookie rating scale, this one ranks right up there. If Tollhouse cookies are a 10, this one might be an 8.5 at least. They’re already in the freezer. The recipe isn’t even up on epicurious yet, so can’t provide a link.
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Over the year+ I’ve been doing this-here blog, I’ve learned a lot. Not only about how to run a website (blog), about software that runs stuff behind the scenes (I know, you’re likely not interested in that part, are you?), but also a lot about food. No, I don’t have a culinary degree (when I went to college I didn’t know I’d be so interested in cooking and the culinary arts as an adult), but over the years my head has filled with a whole lot of varied knowledge about food and cooking. My daughter Dana and two of my friends phone me every now and then to ask questions. Usually it’s about a cooking technique (Can I freeze raw artichokes? Answer no, only cooked ones. Can I freeze heavy cream? Answer yes, but it may separate once it defrosts and doesn’t seem to whip up very well, so basically no. Do you use raw egg yolks – like in Caesar dressing? Answer yes, I do, as long as the eggs have come from a grocery store where I know they’ve kept them refrigerated.) I don’t always know the answer. Thank goodness for the internet. It’s such an huge mass of information. The only problem is you don’t really know what’s true and what isn’t. You need to search several sites to see if you get a consensus. Or refer to some reliable sources. Even Wikipedia, a site I refer to often, isn’t always correct, so I’ve read. It’s only as reliable as the sources from which THEY got the information.

The problem is: I have a curious mind. I like to understand the “why” of things. Which is the reason I often refer to Harold McGee, On Food and Cooking. He’s more like a chemist, but he loves cooking and everything related to food. My cousin Gary gave me the book for Christmas one year, and it’s been a great source of food chemistry fact and lore. McGee debunks the lore part and gives you a lot of info (maybe more than some people want to know) about food chemistry. I’m fascinated by it. It is written for the home cook, but it’s almost like a textbook – fairly heavy reading even for someone interested in food from the get-go.

So, today we’re talking about Steak Diane. When I went online to look up about Steak Diane, I found differing information. Elise, a blogger I read regularly, had an entry awhile back about Steak Diane in which she says that the name Diane comes from Diana, the Greek goddess of the hunt. Yet, when I went to the Practically Edible website it says Steak Diane has nothing whatsoever to do with Diana (the goddess) because there are no hunted animals (like venison) involved. I don’t know who’s right, and mostly it doesn’t matter. All we really care about here is whether the sauce on the steak is GOOD. Or not. I hereby proclaim it’s good. And not hard. Your guests will be impressed, I guarantee you. Be sure to serve these steaks with some kind of comfort carb (Monterey Scalloped Potatoes, plain mashed potatoes or buttered rice or noodles) as you’ll want to slick up every morsel of this sauce. I’ve changed the recipe to serve 8, not 4, meaning each person will eat a half of a 1 1/2 inch thick New York steak.
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I’m a regular reader of the Brilynn from Jumbo Empanadas. And I’ve tried several of her recipes over the year I’ve been monitoring her blog. So when this recipe popped up the other day my taste buds went into zing mode.

Probably about 20 years ago my DH and I and our good friends Bud & Cherrie used to go to San Diego on an occasional Saturday and have a wonderful wine tasting lunch at the Wine Sellar and Brasserie.  You can go for just the wine tasting, but for a nominal fee, you can have their pre-set light lunch (very gourmet, I might add) to accompany it.

Anyway, at one of those tastings, the dessert was home made vanilla ice cream with strawberries, balsamic vinegar and cracked black pepper. Yes, you read that right. Since then I’ve seen it served at other places, but at the time my taste buds just went into overdrive. It was about the cracked pepper, but the combination of strawberries and balsamic vinegar is simply a match made in heaven.

You can see why, then, the Jumbo Empanadas’ recipe title put me into strawberry-balsamic nirvana. Just had to try it. And since strawberries are definitely on the wane here, I needed to do it right NOW if I was going to do it this season! My kitchen freezer is nearly chock-a-block full, but I just had to find room somehow. Even if I had to defrost something else to make room. I’m embarrassed to tell you how big this freezer is and it’s absolutely full to the brim.

The idea of roasting the strawberries with the balsamic seems like such a novel idea, and makes this luscious juicy mash of fruit and juice. And you can get yourself a little spoon to slick up the very last little droplets around the pan. It’s that good.

And don’t forget to reserve a bit of the fruit to drizzle on the top of the ice cream when it’s served. That’s a really nice touch. The taste: oh my goodness. Rich. Sweet. Delicious. Over the top. Fabulous. Wanna have it again SOON!
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Doesn’t everybody need one more recipe for preparing zucchini? I really like the stuff, and this recipe was so easy to make and my DH nearly licked the pan. I’m sorry I didn’t buy more zucchini so I’d have leftovers. The recipe that gave me the idea was from a 2003 issue of Gourmet magazine. But I doctored it up some (adding thyme, lemon juice, Italian parsley and fresh mint the second time), so I suppose it’s really my own recipe now. My DH said next time I should add even more lemon juice. Guess that could be at your own discretion. In any case, I liked this a LOT and will definitely make it again. I have an Oxo brand mandoline and wrote up a post some time back about how much I like the thing (besides the fact that it was only $70 rather than $250 for the fancy French models). I set the dial for 1/8 thick and sliced away. It was done in no time.

The only caution: don’t overload the sauté pan. Reason: because the slices are thin and a bit more awkward to turn (not like using a spoon to just stir it around) the ones at the bottom would get done too quickly and the slices on top would still be mostly raw. Use tongs and a spatula to turn them over about every 30-45 seconds. If you’re in a rush, do two pans at the same time. When the zucchini is still raw, they’re kind of like thin planks and it’s just a bit more time consuming to rotate and turn, that’s all. I made these again last night for guests – I used a combination of zucchini and yellow crookneck squash – and added the mint to the mixture, which was very nice and eliminated the zest. This recipe (and variations of it) will become a regular member of my veggie repertoire.
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Isn’t this thing cute? It belonged to my mother, and is one of the few things that I kept from my mother’s kitchen stuff. It’s a fairly flimsy chopper for walnuts. It won’t chop almonds or hazelnuts, or brazil nuts (because they’re too hard) but it will cut walnuts and pecans. You just pile a few into the top and turn the crank. Most likely the blades on this are getting dull, because it’s not exactly easy to do. And I question sometimes using it, that the flimsy arm will break off. I use it rarely because it seems so easy to just use a big chef’s knife and chop. But this little gadget brings back memories of when I was a young thing and helped my mother in the kitchen. Chopping nuts was a job she could give me to do – with this little contraption rather than using a big knife, or stirring a hot pot. I’m not sure why my mother even kept it, but she did, even when they moved into a retirement home and had a miniscule kitchen hardly worthy of the title of “kitchen.” So I keep it and use it occasionally. The poor thing has chipping paint, the decal is still visible (kind of corny, but typical of designs of the day) and the blades, well they’re over the hill. But it whelms me with nostalgia nevertheless. Do any of you have one of these?

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There are still these few recipes to post from the luncheon tea my friend Cherrie and I did a couple of weeks ago. All of these fillings are delicious – I can personally attest. I’m including three recipes, although we only prepared two of them (actually Cherrie made these). But I’m not likely to be posting recipes from another tea anytime soon, so I’ll give you the additional recipe now. Two are for chicken salad, and the other is a buttery ham mousse. Both chicken ones can be made the day before – the ham must be made within an hour or so of your tea, but it’s not difficult in the least.

HAM MOUSSE: this recipe came from Sarah at Our House South County Cooking School (now closed). The class was all about serving a tea, and this recipe was a standout. I must admit, though, that when I first saw the list of ingredients I thought – oh no, we’re not going to like this – it has butter and whipped cream in it. But, I’m here to tell you, it’s fabulous. You won’t eat many of these, of course, as they’re quite rich, but the flavor is delicious, and the texture goes down smooth! PDFs are down at the bottom of the post.

CHICKEN SALAD WITH SMOKED ALMONDS: Cherrie found this recipe on the net, but it’s from a Gourmet article in 1994. What’s different about these are the chopped smoked almonds on the outside of each sandwich. The actual recipe calls for you to cut each sandwich into two 2-inch rounds (discarding what’s left of each square sandwich) but we thought that was such a huge waste, so just made them in traditional triangles. After filling the sandwiches, you carefully smear a bit of mayo on the outside of the crustless sandwiches, then press them into a small mound of minced smoked almonds. The nuts add a really nice touch and a delicious crunch as we ate them.

CURRIED CHICKEN SALAD: About 10 years ago I threw myself a luncheon tea on a milestone birthday. Since my birthday is in August, it was a very hot day, and not one where we really wanted to be all gussied up with gauzy dresses and floppy hats, but we did it anyway and I merely cranked down the A/C to about 70 degrees. It was fun, as these kinds of events always are. I tested several recipes for a curried chicken salad filling, and this one was, by far, the best of the bunch. I don’t think I’ve made it since, but there’s no reason it couldn’t be served as a dinner salad atop a bed of lettuce on a hot summer’s evening. The recipe started out from an old Palo Alto (California) Junior League cookbook.

Separate PDF printer friendly recipes: ham mousse,   chicken salad w/almonds, curry chicken salad

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Both of our granddaughters appear to have the food gene. Both are interested in cooking and have helped in the kitchen from a young age. One of them, Taylor (10) stayed with us for a part of a week recently. I asked her what she’d like to cook. She thought about it for a day and said pizza and cookies. Well. Okay. We didn’t get to do the pizza (because she spent a lot of her time babysitting and playing with her new cousin, 10-month old Vaughan) but we squeezed in some cookies. Her choice: peanut butter.

Since I’d already made some peanut butter cookies with Taylor (and her older brother Logan) last summer, I turned to my newest cookie book, Martha Stewart’s Cookies, for a different variation. These are very, very similar to the ones we made last summer from America’s Test Kitchen, with the addition of peanuts and peanut butter to the dough. They came together quickly, and Taylor was tickled to scoop and flatten the cookies just so. I outfitted her with an apron and one of my small cloths I always loop over the apron ties. She thought she was quite the chef.

If you’re a fan of peanut butter cookies, then you’ll like this recipe. They’re not my favorite cookie variety, but they are tasty. When I crave cookies, it’s usually chocolate chip. So, in the second half of the batch I insisted we add chocolate chips. Whichever version, they’re good, right out of the freezer. Miss Tay took some home with her on the plane, but they were in crumbs, unfortunately by the time she reached Sacramento. These cookies are quite fragile and crumbly, just so you know.
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I’m still trying to empty out the garage freezer in preparation for the quarter of a pig coming soon from the 4-H auction. So, what did I find but a pork tenderloin in there. And oh, was this preparation ever delicious. It’s from Cooking Light, but I don’t know when. I followed the recipe to the letter. I’ve never really met any mango salsa (or sambal) that I didn’t like, and this was no exception. I had some frozen mango chunks in the freezer (Trader Joe’s has them). Fortunately I looked at the recipe before I left for the market and bought the serrano chile. Otherwise I didn’t need anything else for this dish.

Here’s what the creators of the dish described: Sambal is a generic name for any paste-like condiment made with chiles. Authentic versions tend to be extremely hot. This Malaysian-influenced mango sambal works well with the Southern-style barbeque spice rub. The vinegar gives the condiment a flavor that’s reminiscent of a North Carolina mop sauce.

It’s so terrifically easy. You make a dry rub which took about 2 minutes to round up and combine; you rub it all over the meat, roast it in a 425 degree oven until it reaches 155 degrees internal temp (remember, use the meat probe). The recipe says 160, but it will not have any hint of pink if you wait that long. At 155 degrees, it was done to perfection with just a bit of pink in the middle. Meanwhile I tossed together the mango mixture, prepared a zucchini side and a mixed green salad, and dinner was done. This pork would be lovely for a company meal, but it was great just for a dinner for two.
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On those occasions when I bake or rotisserie a roast, often I don’t know what to do with the leftovers. Well, sometimes anyway. With a beef roast, I suppose you could make hash or sandwiches or open faced sandwiches. A roast chicken is another thing altogether – I don’t have any difficulty finding options for that. I’m talking about a lamb roast or pork roast. Often the meat isn’t all that moist anymore, so unless I’ve made some kind of sauce for the meat the first go-around, I’m left with a hunk of meat and big question marks in my head about what to do with it. We’re certainly not going to waste it, but serving just slices of cold roast pork or lamb doesn’t work around my house. Maybe once, but that’s it. My DH doesn’t complain – he’s SO good about eating whatever I put in front of him, generally, but dry, sliced, cold meat isn’t something that ranks high in his book of good meals. Or mine either, for that matter.

So, I have two recipes to share with you today about this leftover meat problem. The first one, the Marchand de Vin, comes from a favorite little book I own that’s eons old. I bought it used, years and years ago for $2.88. It’s called Sumptuous Sauces in the Microwave, by Patricia Tennison. If you click on the link above, you’ll get to a Google search results page with dozens of listings for her book. It’s out of print, but you can buy it used – cheap – if you’re interested. I love this little book which contains recipes for stocks, white sauces, veloutes, brown sauces, hollandaise, butter sauces, wine and beer sauces (that’s the chapter this recipe came from), gravies, pasta sauces even, a few barbecue sauces, even some veggie and salad dressings and condiments. And, last but not least, some dessert sauces (which I’ve made many times). And every single one of them is cooked (in part or full) in the microwave. What I like about them is that they’re quick and easy. When I’m preparing a leftover meal, I’m usually into QUICK things. Knowing I have leftovers makes me lazy – often I don’t start preparing dinner until 15 minutes before I want to eat. So these sauces work for me.

This particular recipe, the Marchand de Vin, in French, means Wine Merchant’s Sauce. It’s simple – shallot, butter, red wine, stock, cognac, lemon juice and thickened with cornstarch. Ideal for any grilled or roasted meat, really. You’ll find lots of different versions of this sauce if you search on the internet – some contain ham, and mushrooms (they are a nice addition to this, actually, if you have them). You can heat up the meat in the microwave, then pour the sauce over it. In and of itself this sauce isn’t something from a gourmet restaurant, but it’s tasty enough – will give meat some moisture. Be careful and don’t add too much lemon juice. If it’s too thick when you’re done, just stir in some hot water until it’s the right consistency for pouring.

The rosemary-garlic stuffed pork loin roast leftover slices heating in a skillet. I made this along with our favorite garlic green beans.

The Leftover Sauce (now, isn’t that a glamorous title? – I should give it some high-fallutin’ new name instead) is a tomato juice-based sauce, but has onion and celery in it, and a bit of chili powder and a little plop of vinegar to give it some zing. My only caution – tomato juice (or sauce if you use that instead) often contains lots of salt. Try to choose one with no or little salt in it to begin with, then you can season it however you’d like to. This one is made in a frying pan and once it’s simmered for 25 minutes or so, you add the meat slices to the pan just to heat through. If you have leftover mashed potatoes too, make more sauce so you can spoon it over those as well. This recipe came from a friend of my mother’s, Mary W., from about 1971. Tried and true, that’s what it is.
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It was a few weeks ago I went to yet another cooking class. (Lucky for you, you don’t have to pay for the class, but you get to have the recipes!) The subject was entrees suitable for entertaining, by Phillis Carey. I’ll post most of the recipes (one of them I didn’t like much, so will ignore that one) in the next couple of weeks.

This marinade and glaze for flank steak looks like it’s got a lot of ingredients (it does), but it goes together quite quickly. Don’t eliminate the Tabasco – I loved the little bit of heat in this marinade. And the overall taste was excellent. The meat is tenderized (it needs to marinate for at least 24 hours (even 2-3 days would be fine). Cut on the bias and across the grain for very tender slices.
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