That’s a photo BEFORE roasting. SO good afterwards. See that photo below.

You’ve heard me mention my best friend Cherrie. She’s an avid cook, and prepares fabulous meals for herself and her husband Bud on a daily basis. Even before the pandemic, they rarely went out to eat. During the pandemic she’s been preparing a monstrous dish of some kind about once a week, dividing it up into four boxes and taking it to four friends – all of them don’t like to cook. One afternoon each week she and Bud go on a driving trip to deliver the meals to these four friends. Who have come to depend on their weekly delivery! She doesn’t stop at my house because she knows that I DO cook.

Some weeks ago she tried this recipe for Roasted Tomatoes from Ina Garten. I think Cherrie served them with some nice, soft fresh mozzarella cheese and made a salad. Then she began incorporating them in several of her casserole dishes she was making for friends. Then they bought a 25 pound box of Roma tomatoes to make even more of them. She was swimming in Roma tomatoes! They would be wonderful chopped up into pasta, if you’re inclined. Anyway, Cherrie was raving to me about these tomatoes. So I decided I’d best try them myself.

My neighbor did buy 12 Roma (plum) tomatoes for me a week ago, and I had some fresh thyme from my veggie delivery box. I had garlic, EVOO and balsamic. That’s all it needs except for some salt and pepper. Ina’s original recipe didn’t call for thyme, so you can eliminate that if you’d prefer. The tomatoes are halved (and I clipped out the little stem part), placed on parchment , cut side up on a sheet pan, then you begin the layering – salt, pepper, EVOO, garlic and then the thyme laid gently on the top. Roast in the oven until the tomatoes have slumped. The recipe said 20-25 minutes, but mine didn’t “slump” until about 50 minutes, probably because they were quite large tomatoes. Once roasted and cooled slight, gently strip the thyme sprigs off onto the tomatoes and discard those twigs.

Many nights I’ve been eating just vegetables: broccoli, cauliflower, green beans, Brussels sprouts, asparagus, onions in some manner, summer squashes and mushrooms. Sometimes in combination, but usually on their own. That night I made green beans, with onions and bacon, and put a couple of these tomatoes on my plate. I didn’t take a picture of that . . . sorry.

What’s GOOD: well, what can I tell you . . . one of those tomatoes popped into your mouth is like eating candy. Truly. I think they’d be best at room temp or warmed. They’d be good with fresh mozzarella. Or chopped up and served alongside a burger or steak. Or chicken. Chopped up with green onions and lime juice, they’d be good on a piece of grilled fish.

What’s NOT: nothing other than you do need to use Roma (plum) tomatoes. I suppose you could try it with other varieties, even cherry tomatoes.

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Such a colorful photo, isn’t it? There’s a toasted piece of bread on the bottom, some mozzarella cheese, a kind of Italian meatball, the some marinara sauce on top.

Some weeks ago I went to my daughter Sara’s backyard – Sara, who partly (occasionally) participates on my blog. She’s so busy – she and her husband own a small business, they’re short handed, work long hours – 5, sometimes 6 days a week, and both of their kids are home now. The older one, Sabrina, just graduated from Clemson University and is applying to med school. She’s having to take a gap year but hasn’t yet found a job to fill in between now and fall 2021, that would be an asset to her medical career. She’s hoping. Her brother John is in summer school at Virginia Tech (online, that is), and he helps out most days at the family business. Sara cooks dinner at least 5 nights a week. The two kids each do dinner one night a week.

Except to visit the powder room, I stayed outside the whole time. It was a lovely day. Not too hot, thank goodness. Sara made dinner (I’m posting this recipe for her, also the dessert in a few days). We had such a nice visit – it was so good to see the whole family although we couldn’t hug, of course. I wanted so much to hug my grandchildren! And everybody, really, but no, we can’t. We stayed socially distanced.

Anyway, Sara made these open-faced Italian meatball sandwiches. She’d found the recipe on the web, but altered a bit by using chicken Italian sausage instead of pork. She’d purchased those kind of flat rolls – I don’t know what they’re called, she halved them, spread with a bit of olive oil, grilled them so they had lovely grill marks and were just barely crispy. Meanwhile she’d mixed up the meat – she used extra lean ground beef and some chicken Italian sausage and made the meatballs. The recipe indicated making round balls, but Sara tried to flatten them out some so they’d kind of fill the top of the piece of toasted bread. As you know, meat shrinks up when it’s cooked, and sure enough, these did, so they ended up more like round meatballs. The bread had some nice fresh mozzarella cheese draped over them (see photo), then the sizzling meat was put on top. They were garnished with a goodly amount of marinara sauce and decorated with some fresh basil.

There they are fresh off the grill, sizzling hot. Since I wasn’t doing the cooking, it was pretty easy for me to take ample photos. Some of us ate them with our hands – I ate it with a knife and fork. I knew some of that bright red, stain-worthy sauce would end up on my blouse.

What’s GOOD: loved everything about these. Partly because I hardly ever eat a sandwich of any kind these days. The meat was juicy; the mozzarella cheese gave it a nice oozy feel in the mouth. The sauce added lots of flavor, and then the fresh basil added a delicious fillip to each bite. This is a keeper.

What’s NOT: nothing, really. Not all that difficult  – make up the meatball mixture a few hours ahead.

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So, do I know my readers? Tofu? Can I hear ewwws out there? Don’t be a naysayer until you’ve tried it.

Right off the get-go, I’ll just share that I’m not a fan of tofu. Back in the day I’d leave the tofu squares at the bottom of the soup bowl at a Chinese restaurant. Still would if I’m eating at a Chinese restaurant (I’m not). Didn’t and don’t like the texture. Tofu, in and of itself, has very little flavor. You know that, right? But that doesn’t make me want to eat it in cubes in much of anything. There is a tofu dip here on my blog that’s actually very good.

This recipe I got at a cooking class many, many months ago. Way back when I was still attending such things. I’m certainly not at the moment. And may not be for a very long time. Sigh. But anyway, Susan had found this recipe on the ‘net, at the Food Network. I’m not sure which type of tofu she used at the class, but it was so runny it hardly seemed like pudding once she whizzed up this dessert. It was more like a sauce. But I liked it. Just didn’t like the thin type texture. So over the last many months I’ve tried it twice. The original recipe called for silken. But I tried it first with firm tofu. It was way too firm, even though I thinned it out with some milk. I asked my neighbor, who is still doing some of my shopping for me (but now I’m able to order online and drive in front of my local market and they put the groceries in my trunk – yeah!), if she’d buy me some silken tofu. Well, Trader Joe’s was the grocery of choice for her, that day, so I got what they had. And funnily enough, the box didn’t say which style tofu it was. It wasn’t as firm as “firm,” but it was still fairly so. Definitely not silken. Perhaps Susan used silken and it was too soft.

The recipe calls for cocoa powder, Dutch processed. I used an extra dark cocoa that I buy from either Penzey’s or King Arthur and it’s not Dutched. It’s richer and darker than usual, but you can easily use grocery-store bought cocoa like Hershey’s. Their extra-dark is actually very good. In this recipe, I can’t imagine the Dutch type is important, so I don’t know why it specifically calls for it.

What I will tell you is that this dessert – that really is more like a pudding than a mousse – is so incredibly easy and quick, you won’t quite believe it when I tell you you can whip it up in 10 minutes or less. It does like to be chilled for awhile, however. When I made this batch (pictured above) it made 6 little cups of pudding. You might eke out 7 if you tried. Even though it’s tofu, it’s rich, creamy, and very satisfying. I used one of my brands of artificial sugar (Lankanto monkfruit, my current fav) and couldn’t tell the difference from using regular sugar.

The chocolate, cocoa, a little bit of water and brandy are heated until the chocolate is melted and smooth. Then you add in the sugar (which cools it down), then you add it to the tofu in a blender or food processor (I used the latter). If you whiz it up for a bit, it makes the texture very pudding-like smooth. See if you like the texture (not smoothness but the thickness). If it’s too stiff, add a tablespoon or two of milk to thin it slightly. Spoon or pour the pudding into little cups and chill for at least an hour. I left them open (meaning, uncovered) in my frig for days and the top never developed a skin.

Susan whipped up real cream. I used the canned type since I had some, and forgot to add the chocolate shavings to garnish it.

What’s GOOD: so easy. So rich, chocolaty and creamy. Loved the texture, even though I know I’m eating tofu, it doesn’t seem like it. Would make a great company dessert. I promise you, no one is going to know it’s tofu. You don’t have to tell them. This is also a GF dessert – no thickening used.

What’s NOT: only that you’ll have to plan ahead and have some tofu on hand. Don’t use silken or firm. Something in-between.

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Needing a nice, gentle curried cauliflower soup to serve chilled? This is your ticket.

In my soup recipe repertoire, I must have 30 or more cauliflower soups. And there are plenty of them already posted and archived in the index. They’re all very different; this one is no exception. When I ate, then prepared the cauliflower soup I posted a few months ago, Creamy Cauliflower Soup with Golden Raisins, Pine Nuts, Capers and Balsamic Drizzle, there’s no question it sailed to the very top of my list of favorite cauliflower soups. Even though I’ve only made it once. It was just sensational. But I’d get tired of making that one over and over. I eat a lot of cruciferous vegetable soups, or soups that don’t have a lot of carbs. Hence broccoli and cauliflower rank high on my soup cooking lists. Recently I made a combo soup of both of those veggies. It was awful. After two servings of it, it got poured down the drain.

So as I perused all of the other recipes to try, this one kept coming back for my review. I had a relatively small head of cauliflower. I had a Gala apple and onion. Everything else was do-able. I made it, thinking I’d serve it hot (which is how the original recipe was served at Campton Place). I made it a couple of days ago and had it chilling in the frig. When I took out the container I needed to taste it for salt. Oh my, it tasted just wonderful chilled. So, although you may serve this hot or cold, cold is my preference. At least now since it’s summer and very hot outside.

The soup is like many others – butter, onion, curry powder (medium heat) and fresh ginger. Sautéed. Then apple, saffron, the cauliflower and low sodium chicken broth. That simmered for about half an hour or less, then I added the milk, whizzed it using my stick blender, then cooled it. I recommend you make it a day ahead.

In the original recipe, the garnish was minced apple, saffron and curry powder with a dash of salt. I decided to enhance it with some more vegetables. I love celery, so it got minced up so very fine, some red bell pepper because it would look pretty, a couple of green onions, some cilantro, salt, and some lemon juice. I’d actually gotten out an avocado as well, but at the last minute decided there was enough already. I chose not to add more curry powder. There’s enough in the soup, although it’s not overpowering at all. I saved a few whole cilantro leaves to place on top.

A serving of 1 1/2 cups of this is a whopping 167 calories, including the garnishes. With the apple in it, it does have 24 grams of carbs.

What’s GOOD: almost any cauliflower soup is a bit bland, so adding other flavors is imperative in my book. The curry powder (not much) adds just a lovely hint of curry flavor. The apple added into the mix also mellows out the cauliflower. Really liked that part. I couldn’t distinguish the saffron – I suppose if it was taken out the soup would have a different flavor profile, but truly saffron didn’t come to mind as I tasted it. But the star of the soup was the garnish. It’s a way to get more veggies, but it’s tempered by the addition of some apples too. You can serve it hot or cold. The garnish will keep for a day or two with the addition of lemon juice.

What’s NOT: nothing that I can think of – making it a day ahead is helpful – the flavors will meld better. Maybe preparing the garnish, but it still only took about 5 minutes to do that part.

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Most likely you’re going to laugh. Secret sauce? Eh-what?

Making this appetizer is so very simple – other than having to cook the asparagus to just that right al-dente bite. You don’t want limp asparagus. You want them barely cooked through, but not so they’d totally fall over in a stand-up container. Part of the fun of this is using some kind of fun vertical container. If I had a glass cylinder that wasn’t too tall, I’d use that, just so you can see the asparagus full length.

It’s been decades since I first read or heard about this method of offering asparagus as an appetizer. To tell you the truth, I don’t remember where I got it. It could have been at a Weight Watcher’s meeting. It might have been from some old-old cookbook. It might have been at a cooking class. I didn’t even have a recipe written up for this – like a real, honest to goodness recipe to follow. I had to write one for this post. Asparagus, some salt, water, and then the secret ingredient. And a tad of sesame seeds as a garnish.

First, you just have to steam or simmer the trimmed asparagus in salted water until they’re just barely tender. Sorry, I’m repeating myself here. It’s important you not overcook them, so they stand up. Drain them and let them dry. If you’re in a hurry, put them out on paper towels or a tea towel and gently dry them off. I prefer these cool or cold, but that’s up to you.

Then, ta-da, you merely roll them in some seasoned rice wine vinegar and sprinkle them with the sesame seeds. That’s it. You DO NOT make this ahead (the acid in the rice wine vinegar will make the asparagus turn an insipid canned-asparagus-color). Not good. So JUST before you’re ready to serve them, you put them in a flat dish or flat bowl, sprinkle a bit of the seasoned rice wine vinegar over them, roll them around with your fingers. If I’m feeling adventurous, I also sprinkle toasted sesame seeds around the top of the asparagus, picking up a bunch in my hand. Then stand them up in your chosen vertical vessel. Coffee mugs are just about the right height. I took this to my a family dinner a week or so ago. They were gone in a flash. Even my grandson Vaughan, who professes to not like asparagus very much, had a bunch.

I forgot to take the sesame seeds when I served them last time, so you can’t see them sticking to the tops. I’m making them again today, so am going to put out the sesame seeds – so I don’t forget!

What’s GOOD: so easy and extremely low calorie. Nice for a picnic although do take a wet paper towel to wipe off your fingers after you’ve used the vinegar. The vinegar has some sugar in it (that makes it “seasoned”) so it’ll make your fingers sticky. I guarantee you, they’ll be a hit. One of the fun things is serving this in a vertical container.

What’s NOT: only that you have to do the seasoning (finger-rolling in the vinegar) at the last minute, but truly it’ll take you less than one minute to do it.

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It’s not every day you have some left over smoked beef brisket. If you do, however, THIS is a recipe for you!

Several weeks ago I ventured “out” and drove to the Pasadena area where my son and his family live. I stayed outside in their back yard and enjoyed a lovely afternoon with them, and had a sumptuous dinner. Powell has a big honkin’ barbecue/smoker and he’d purchased THE largest brisket I’ve ever seen in my life. He goes to a meat market near where they live, called Harmony Farms. They know him by first name now. Anyway, what to do with left over beef brisket that’s been smoked? Karen had made this chili once before (a year ago maybe) and I’d exclaimed over the wonderful flavors of the chili. So when I went home that evening she gave me a nice container of smoked brisket to use however I wanted, but what I wanted was this chili.

The recipe called for 3 cups of leftover brisket. This brisket was not slathered with anything wet – it had a dry rub on it and had been smoked for 12 hours or so, and it had deep, smoky flavor. Powell uses something called Cue-Glue from Savory Spice. It’s something that helps dry rub stick to the meat. The label calls it “the pro’s secret weapon.”

When I made the chili, I adapted the recipe, just slightly. I had more brisket, and didn’t have the smaller half-cans of kidney beans or black beans, so I used one can total and some frozen corn. I just eye-balled it. Since the brisket had some fairly warm (spicy) rub on it, I tamed down the seasonings a little bit. Play with it if you make this. The recipe came from a website called vindulge. There are oodles of grilled and smoked meat recipes on that website.

What “makes” this recipe is, obviously, the brisket itself and it’s deep, smoky flavors. You start off with 1-inch chunks of the already smoked brisket, and as it cooks (simmers) the beef does break down into smaller pieces. And becomes super tender. There’s a little bit of coffee (I made a shot of espresso) in this, some chipotle in adobo sauce (be careful, that stuff is hot) and smoked paprika and beer.

When I made this a few weeks ago, it was still cool spring weather here, so I ate some of it and froze some of it – maybe for the fall once summer winds down.

Tuck this recipe into your hat for the fall, unless you’re wanting to make a smoked brisket in the summer. Just don’t use a wet-slathered red sauced type brisket. It would lean this chili over into a barbecue sauce soup, which isn’t what you want here. A tip of my hat to my daughter in law, Karen, for finding this recipe, and for sharing the smoked brisket with me so I could make it myself.

What’s GOOD: oh my, so delicious. I just love this recipe. But then, I do love chili. Not usually ones with tons of beans in it, however. I was prudent with how many beans I added. The combo of flavors is over the top wonderful. I don’t cook smoked meat, so if I make this again, it’ll need to be from another part of my son’s smoked meats. He loves to smoke meat, though, so that’s probably not a problem! Make the day ahead if you have time – all soups get better with an overnight chill.

What’s NOT: maybe acquiring the smoked brisket? Otherwise, nothing at all. Plan ahead a few hours.

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Yes, chocolate chip, but with a decidedly different texture and flavor profile.

Necessity is the mother of invention. During the time when I was eschewing nearly all carbs, I had collected a lot of recipes, including this one for a GF cookie (although this one I made here is not quite GF). I was all out of my last batch of choc chip cookies, so needed to find something new to try. I wanted to make something that had next to no sugar, and very little if any flour. This recipe came into being. I had almond butter on hand. In little 1 ounce packages. Hmm. But not enough to make 6 tablespoons. But I did have peanut butter, so I combined the two. Neither flavor really prevailed in the finished cookie, which was fine with me. The recipe called for coconut butter (oil), but I used unsalted butter. It also called for coconut sugar. I had some, but decided to use some monkfruit sweetener in addition, so I did half and half. I had the pure blanched almond flour on hand, but I also had some of Trader Joe’s almond meal (which contains some of the almond skin – hence these cookies have a little more dark/speckled look to them. The recipe also called for coconut flour, so that’s when I substituted regular wheat flour, all purpose. It was only 1/3 cup, so hardly any carbs for the whole recipe.

I’ve renamed the recipe because these cookies have a different texture – not exactly like pecan sandies – but they’re similar in texture. So even though they’re chocolate chip, with a hint of peanut butter, they do have a different texture than any chocolate chip cookie I’ve ever made.

Mixing it up was no trouble – into my stand mixer went the ingredients in a specific order. Refrigerated butter needs nothing more than 10 seconds in my microwave to be softened. No more, no less.

Knowing that I’d veered away from the original recipe with a lot of different ingredients, I wasn’t sure how they would turn out during the baking process, so I baked just two at first, thinking that I could add more flour or something else if it needed it. Once out of the oven they were incredibly soft and tender. They looked done, but when I touched the top of the cookie, it was almost a wet pouf, but once I let them cool  on the sheet first, they were easy to remove from the cookie sheet. And they were fine. Just fine. Better than fine!Next time I’ll add some chopped walnuts, just because I like choc chip cookies with nuts. So you could easily add 1/3 cup of them to this recipe, or not; your choice. You’ll get a yield of a couple more cookies.

What’s GOOD: definitely chocolate chip. Definitely different texture (but good). Like them a lot. I wouldn’t change a thing.

What’s NOT: only if you don’t have almond flour, or almond butter. Easy to make. Can be refrigerated before baking.

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Absolute divine chicken and vegetables.

A few weeks ago I was reading Smitten Kitchen (blog) and Deb had written up a recipe for smaltzy chicken with a bed of cabbage underneath it. I know enough Yiddish to know that schmaltz is chicken fat. I laughed at Deb’s naming of the recipe – schmaltzy – to connote the fat that drips down from the chicken into and onto the bed of cabbage underneath. When I made the dish, it was absolutely fabulous. I mean drop-dead fabulous. And I took pictures of it. But when I tried to work with the photos, it was just so “brown.” You know me and dull, brownish pictures. Hate them. I used all of that chicken, and ate all of the delicious cabbage that had been permeated with the chicken juices, and fat, of course. So, with another chicken in my frig, but no cabbage, I decided to try it with different veggies.

To make this recipe work, I think you DO need to use firm brassica vegetables (Brussels, cabbage, turnips and/or cauliflower). I had Brussels, but nothing else, so I added onions on top. Onions aren’t of the brassica family, but they do take a long time to cook through. So, I thought, why not? Oh my goodness. A marriage made in heaven.

This dish is a cinch to put together. I mean it. The Brussels sprouts are halved if they’re big, otherwise left whole, and they’re placed cut side down into an oiled iron skillet. One that’s big enough to hold all the vegetables and the whole chicken sitting on top of them. Then the halved and sliced onions are put on top of that. I seasoned them with salt, pepper and dried thyme (my favorite go-to herb). The whole chicken is dried off, then oiled with EVOO, salted, peppered and more dried thyme, then set atop the veggies. Into a VERY hot oven (450°) it goes for about 50 minutes. My oven runs a tad hot, so I used 445°F. At the halfway point I turned the pan around 180°F in the oven.

When I made chicken before, I removed it when the thigh had reached 165°F, the usual temp cooks say it needs to reach. But I wasn’t totally happy with the chicken – to me it wasn’t quite done. It was done, but it wasn’t done enough. The leg wasn’t loose – the sure sign that a chicken is cooked through. So this time when I opened the oven at 50 minutes, the chicken was very golden brown. So I turned the oven down to 420°F and let it roast for another 10 minutes, at which point the thigh had reached 180°F. If you have a smaller chicken or a larger one, you might need to adapt the total baking time. I removed the pan with all the wonderful chicken and onion flavors floating around my nose, tented it with foil for about 10 minutes, and was ready to serve.

The vegetables stayed plenty warm in the hot-hot frying pan while I carved  up the chicken. My portion control went right out the window. I hate a leg (thigh and drumstick) and a big scoop of vegetables. And as I peeled off all the chicken from the carcass later, I nibbled on more juicy, dripping chicken. Oh my.

What’s GOOD: there is nothing that wasn’t sensational about this chicken. If I don’t have brassicas to add to the pan, well, I’ll just use more onions. But the combo of Brussels and onions was doubly wonderful. If you’re not a Brussels sprouts fan, use cabbage and onions.

What’s NOT: nothing that I can think of – you do need some kind of veg that needs long, hot cooking. Hence I didn’t think broccoli would work here. Cauliflower would, however, so I’ll try that next time, providing I have some.

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More and more, I see bloggers who show food-sloppy pictures. So here’s mine!

As I write this, looking at that picture, I’m laughing. What a messy casserole! I could have tried to clean it up before taking the picture, but oh well. It is what it is. I’m also laughing at myself – – – when I make something that is wildly delicious, the next day my fingers are just itching to get to my keyboard to start writing up a post. This is one of those kind of posts. After checking my email and doing my online jigsaw puzzle to wake up my brain, I was right into it, correcting the recipe with the changes I made, preparing the photos and beginning to write the story.

My neighbor, who is still doing a lot of my grocery shopping for me, bought sweet onions (instead of regular yellow ones). Afterwards, I gave her a little lesson in onions (she’s not much of a cook – she COOKS, but not because she likes to – because she has to feed her family of 4). She had never heard of sweet onions – so I gave her a quick lesson about them. I should give her a link to the blog post I did some years ago after my friends Tom and Joan gifted me with a passel of Texas Noonday sweet onions. And, last week she went to Costco (for herself, but also for me) and I had her buy a 3-pack of the ground beef. I froze two, and left one the frig. So, here I was with ground beef and sweet onions (you know, of course, that sweet onions don’t last as long in your pantry as regular onions – they have more moisture/water in them, so they tend to spoil much sooner). I searched my recipe database, and up popped this recipe that I hadn’t tried yet.

And what a winner of a recipe it is. I’ll be making this again. I think next time I’ll try it with ground turkey, just to make it a bit healthier. First you have to slice 2 big sweet onions (cut in half first, then sliced) and they sweat away with some EVOO until they’ve caramelized. That takes awhile – especially with the sweet onions. When they get to the end of caramelizing you add in a little solution of beef broth and red wine and sweat that off too.

Then you make the meatballs. First you mix some of the usual kinds of ingredients. A cube of mozzarella cheese is put into the center of each meatball. Not a very big piece as lots of the cheese oozes out during cooking. Then you brown the meatballs.

Meanwhile, the onions are put into bottom of a casserole dish (or you can make this in a frying pan that’s suitable for going into the oven, that’ll save one more dish from dishwashing). The meatballs go in on top. Then you make a cornstarch-thickened mixture with broth and more red wine and that cooks in the residual fat left in the frying pan. Once thickened, that’s poured over the top of the meatballs.

Into the oven they go for about 15-20 minutes, then you take them out and add the cheese on top and back into the oven they go for another 15-20 minutes, and they’re done.

There’s a picture of the casserole (the second one I made that I gave to my neighbor) ready for the second baking with the cheese on top.

Once the casserole is done, I suggest you take it out of the oven and let it sit for about 4-5 minutes. It’s really hot, and that cheese will, for sure, burn the roof of your mouth.

I probably should have had just three meatballs. I splurged and had four. And oh, were they ever good. There really isn’t “soup” as you might think – there are delicious red-winey-onions on the bottom, then the meatballs, crispy with the golden brown cheese. This could be served on a bed of rice, cauliflower rice (buttered), some mashed potatoes, mashed cauliflower too, or some noodles? Or a bed of buttered garlic spinach.

What’s GOOD: everything about this was delicious. The onions have great flavor, especially with the little bit of red wine added, then the sauce too, which has broth and red wine in it. The beef was tasty, especially if you had a bit of cheese and onion with every bite. I almost licked the bowl.

What’s NOT: well, this does take a bit of time to make. If you have some extra hands in the kitchen to do the meatballs, that would be a great help. It probably took about an hour and 20 minutes or so to do it all, altogether, including the 30 minute baking time. The onions take a long time – you could easily do those ahead, as that would save a lot of time.

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That’s a glass espresso cup. Tiny. And an espresso spoon. To make a tiny dessert.

As businesses have opened up here in California (mostly) I’m still sheltering in place. Wishing all of this was over with, so we can go about our lives again. Alas, for people my age, at least here in California, it’s not happening yet. I’m still at home, preparing all of my own food (I haven’t done any take-out so far). There’s no shortage of recipes to try, but sometimes there aren’t the right ingredients to make things happen. My next door neighbor is still buying lots of food for me, although I’m now buying from some local grocery stores that deliver.

The other day a little memory rose up to the surface, as they are wont to do sometimes, and I remembered waaaay back in the day when I was still working. Kathleen, who worked for us, was going to Weight Watchers at the time, and came into the office and said oh, taste this . . . it was something creamy, thick, white. Eileen tasted it and said eww….. I tasted it and said wow, that’s delicious. What is it? She said pastry cream. What? Really, on Weight Watchers? She said yes. I wanted the recipe. She laughed a little, I think, and said you won’t believe what it is? Ricotta cheese, a smidgen of yogurt with some sweetener in it (probably Sweet ‘n Low, which was about all that was available back then). And maybe there was a tiny splash of vanilla in it. Not sure that I remember if Kathleen used it, but I do add vanilla when I make it.

My business partner and I sold the ad agency back in 1995, but I’ve stayed in touch with some of the employees, Kathleen included. I emailed her the other day and asked her if she remembered that day. Of course she did! And she recalled that the following week after that epiphany in the office, she went to her Weight Watchers meeting, and raved about the “pastry cream” she’d been snacking on a few times a day, the leader said WHAT? You’re only supposed to have a bite or two, like on a strawberry, or spread on an apple slice. OH. We all laughed about that.

But I’ve not forgotten that little sinful pleasure, and had my neighbor buy me a tub of ricotta from Trader Joe’s. I buy full fat because I’m not pleased with what I’ve read about how dairy products are stripped of the fat – maybe not a healthy food to eat. So anyway, I opened the tub, sprinkled on some monkfruit sweetener, added a small dollop of yogurt, and a couple of drops of vanilla, and stirred it up well. I prefer to do this several hours ahead, but hey, if you’re in a hurry, go right ahead. The sweetener or sugar just doesn’t dissolve immediately in ricotta cheese. Over the years, I’m sure I’ve made this “ricotta cream” at least 20 times. (Thank you, Kathleen!) The original recipe suggests you whiz this up in the food processor until the ricotta is silky smooth. I don’t bother – the stirred version is fine with me.

Meanwhile, my neighbor phoned me one day and said the local grocery store had big boxes of fresh strawberries for $1.99. Did I want one? Wow, that’s a lot of strawberries for me to eat, but I said “sure.” I ate a few, then thought about making a fresh strawberry sauce, using artificial sweetener. I’m really trying to limit the sugar I eat. This may be the last “dessert” you’ll see here for awhile as I’m telling myself I can’t be baking with abandon as I stay here at home. I want to bake. No. Need to stop!

So I made a fresh strawberry sauce with fresh, sliced strawberries, some monkfruit sweetener, and a little bit of fresh lemon juice. It took little or no time to make. I read a bunch of different recipes, and one intrigued me stating that sliced berries will result in a vibrant, clear sauce. If you mash them, it muddies the waters, so to speak. I liked the result, and it’s low in calorie to boot. I also added a tiny, tiny splash of dark balsamic vinegar to the mixture once it cooled. It gives a different flavor profile – you can’t quite figure out what’s in it. Those little storage containers above are now in the freezer. The pound of berries made a lot of sauce, which won’t keep all that long because it’s not sweetened with sugar. It tastes like a thin jam, but without real sugar it will begin to spoil after 4-5 days.

USING: Well, when I’m desperate for a snack, my spoon goes into that tub of ricotta cheese. I eat maybe 2 bites straight, just like Kathleen taught me back in the 90s [cheeky grin]. If I’m wanting something more fancy, I do have some vanilla ice cream on hand that I’m trying very hard not to eat but rarely, and the other night I scooped some into a little bitty glass dish and spooned some berries on top, with a few walnuts. A tasty dessert. Or I spoon some of the ricotta cream into a little espresso cup and add the berries on top (pictured at top).

What’s GOOD: a great little snack (moderation, remember?) and makes a nice little bitty dessert if you’re hankering for something not too sinful. Strawberries are at peak season here in California at the moment. A perfect time to make this. And freeze some of it for a winter’s day.

What’s NOT: only if you don’t like the texture/consistency of ricotta cheese. It is an odd, kind of grainy texture, perhaps an acquired taste for some, but I’m fine with it. Obviously Eileen wasn’t! Chuckle.

RICOTTA CREAM: printer-friendly PDF and MasterCook 15/16 file (click link to open recipe)

STRAWBERRY SAUCE: printer-friendly PDF and MasterCook 15/16 file (click link to open recipe)

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