A recipe from Sara

This is an alternative to yeast breads that takes no time to make and has 10-11 grams protein per serving!  It’s my new favorite. I make this in double batches and my family goes through them within a few days. Always a good sign the recipe is enjoyed.

The only negative is the self-rising flour, as it’s not something I normally use, so I had to buy some specifically for this recipe. And now I have to find a permanent home in my baking drawer!

Notes from Carolyn: you can make your own self-rising flour and store it that way, but if you don’t have self-rising flour and don’t want to have to buy it or store it, use this adaptation: for every 1 cup of all-purpose flour add 1 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder and 1/2 teaspoon of salt.

In writing up this recipe for Sara, and going online to verify instructions, I discovered this gem is now in a Weight Watchers recipe frenzy. “Everybody” is making it – you can make all kinds of things with it: bagels (Sara’s favorite), calzones, pizza dough, pretzels, bread sticks, and even cinnamon rolls. Sara had difficulty making pretzel shapes with the dough (it’s very sticky). If you’re interested, go online and search for “2 ingredient (insert type)” and you’ll find many websites with the same recipe and perhaps more instructions for making the other varieties.Sara used the recipe from a website called Recipe Diaries. You might want to go there and check out some of Jenna’s hints about handling the dough (refrigerate it before shaping). The complete recipe (4 servings) amounts to 11 WW points, in case you’re following their nutrition/diet style.

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Oh my goodness. Where does one begin explaining this book. It’s positively mesmerizing. I could hardly put it down. I wanted to snatch up my Kindle at all hours or day and evening to find out what was going to happen next. My favorite kind of read.

Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens is a treasure. Not only the story itself – about a girl (very young) who is basically abandoned by her mother first, then a couple of  years later by her drunken and abusive father, yet she survives by herself, living on the edge of civilization (in the hinter marshland in North Carolina near the ocean), yet only a mile or so from a small town. In a primitive shack. But that’s not really the story. From the time Kya was a child she was interested in the wildlife in the marshy lands near her home. She became one with nature – the birds would mingle like one with her. She collected things, she observed the birds, lizards and insects in how they lived, mated, died. She collected shells and weeds and flowers. And she learned to harvest some food. And sell mollusks to buy more food to survive. She didn’t go to school.

Oh, but I’m giving away the story, and I can’t do that. You just have to read this book. The author is a naturalist/scientist by profession and has written other books, like Cry of the Kalahari. Many years of Owens’ life she and her husband lived in Africa, as scientists, studying the desert. I have that book on my Kindle and haven’t ever read it. I bought it to read while I was on safari some years ago, and never got around to it. Shame on me! I will now.

The author has a way with words – they’re lyrical – they’re poetic – they’re haunting. I highlighted many paragraphs on my Kindle to go back and read again later. Such beautiful writing. If you enjoy that kind of read, you’ll be doubly happy reading this book.

It’s difficult to categorize this book – probably 60% of it is about Kya’s growing up, her coming of age, and she does make a couple of friends. I can’t tell you more. There is a murder mystery involved, but this book is nothing like a common mystery novel. There’s also some poetry intermingled in the text. I must thank my reader Peg K for recommending this book to me. Thank you so much, Peg, for the suggestion. This has leaped up in my own list of favorites. I almost want to buy the hardcover just so I have it in my book collection. The book was published in 2018, so it’s still pricey in any form if you purchase it. Maybe you can find it at the library. Put it on your amazon wish list. But you’ve got to read it. Reese Witherspoon is going to produce a movie – I can’t wait.

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A recipe from Sara – a delicious bar she’s made a couple of times in the last few weeks and everybody just LOVED them.

So, Sara hasn’t yet learned how to post recipes, so I’m doing it for her, for the moment. She’s going to come visit me sometime soon and she’ll learn, get it down pat, then she can post recipes and the write-ups herself, from home. . . carolyn

Sara says: these were an easy-fix to take to a party, to serve to friends, especially with a cup of coffee in hand, or to provide for a kids’ event. These are sweet and chewy, and chocolaty. I love to make recipes like this because they are fast, easy to cut and pretty to display on a tray.

In reading the original recipe at King Arthur Flour, I found several complaints, and one in particular about the addition of the caramel layer (it worked for some and didn’t for many who tried it), SO, I made some adjustments.

In the original recipe, people complained about getting them out of the pan – so I added the step of lining the pan with parchment; the recipe didn’t say light or dark brown sugar, so I chose dark; I prefer dark chocolate chips, but you can use semisweet, or even milk chocolate if that’s your preference; and the biggest change . . . I’ve started using canned dulce de leche for all of the recipes I make that call for baking the caramel. It’s just easier, period. And I’ve never had a failure. These cookies are very sweet, so a little bit goes a long ways – hence I cut them in 1-inch cubes. That’s truly enough!

What’s GOOD: this recipe is a definite keeper for me. All my friends enjoyed them and my kids went nuts over them. They’d be easy to ship to my daughter away at college (cookies = love from mom). I loved the sweetness of the caramel and the robust flavor of dark chocolate. These are easily frozen and brought out for unexpected guests.

What’s NOT: nothing except incorporating the changes I made to the recipe – all for flavor or for ease.

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You know, I’ve been writing this blog for nearly 12 years. And as time has gone by, I’ve lengthened the interval between posts (at first it was every day, then every other, then every 3 days, and currently about every 4 days). With this diet I’m on, I don’t imagine you, my readers, have been all that interested in what I have to write. It takes a firm discipline to be on the Stephen Gundry, Plant Paradox diet. It’s restrictive, and isn’t a diet that you take on lightly, or even as a diet you’ll eventually get to the end of. It’s a life-long commitment, if you choose to continue. There are days when I’m quite frustrated with it, but I do believe in the basic premise of it – virtually no carbs.

I’m experimenting with a few recipes to make “breads” that are edible on this diet, but are they satisfying? Not much, so far. I long for a slice of whole grain toast now and then, and a simple tuna sandwich slathered with some mayo and on white bread. Or a potato, or some kernels of corn in a soup. All no-no’s. My eating style has changed so much in the 9 months or so I’ve been on this diet. Currently I’m having 2 hard boiled eggs for breakfast, with a little mound of fresh blueberries on the side. For lunch I have soup, something I’ve made that contains foods I can eat. I have a small handful of nuts and a raw carrot in the mid-afternoon if I’m craving a snack. For dinner mostly I eat a salad with plenty of vegetables in it and tossed with a homemade dressing I’ve prepared. And at some point in the day I do indulge in some very dark chocolate (an ounce a day, which is allowed). That’s it. I can have a bit of wine if I want it, and I’ve been enjoying eggnog this month if it’s made with heavy cream. I do go out to eat some (with friends) and order meat and a veg mostly. Or a salad if they have one that’s got food I can eat.

On occasion I still cook “regular” meals, with carbs. But they’re for guests. Usually very little of it that I can eat. And yes, it’s difficult doing that. I have so many wonderful recipes on my blog and I’m sad I can’t have most of them anymore.

So, all that said, I’m giving myself permission to quit writing posts for the time being. Or at least not on the schedule I’ve been on. Or, unless I make something that I am really enamored with and feel a strong need to share with you. I’m not going away. My plan is to devote some of this extra time to my art, something I haven’t done in many years and I’d like to get back to it. Drawing and watercolor mostly. I’ll keep the blog up (it costs me about $12/month to keep it on the ‘net and an annual fee for the domain name). Maybe I’ll come back to it. I don’t know. I’ve never accepted advertising, nor guest posts (other than my daughter’s). Daughter Sara would like to take over this blog, and perhaps she will – she says she want to. There’s a certain discipline that’s needed when you write a blog, and I’m not sure with her so-very-busy life (full time job and family) that she has the time. But she took photos of 2-3 recipes on December 24th, and she wants to share them. I need to teach her how to do it all, however, so the plan is that sometime in the next few weeks she’s going to come here to my house and I’ll spend time with her doing that.

I’ve been retired since 1995 – gee whiz – that’s 23 years ago – and I’ve actually accomplished all of the goals I made for myself when I did so. (Those goals: 1. write a cookbook for my children [I started this blog first, but I did print a cookbook that I gifted to all of my kids and close friends]; 2. start an investment club [did that for 11 years, I think it was]; and 3. learn to paint [yes, did that one too]. I hadn’t planned on becoming a widow, however. At least not this soon. In March, it’ll be 5 years since Dave passed away. But I’m so grateful he and I did lots and lots of traveling in the years of our marriage and especially so after we both retired. We visited every place we’d put on our travel list and then some. I’m still living in a great big house, and I truly love my home, but there are days when I get overwhelmed with keeping watch over everything. In the last year I’ve had a leak – sprinklers that were spraying the house rather than the garden and it caused a $10,000 repair bill to replace hardwood flooring inside, dry wall, stucco outside, treat for subterranean termites, paint inside and out, etc. It was a big job and fortunately there was no mold. Currently I have a roof leak of unknown origin. Fortunately, during our heavy rains last month it only leaked onto my glass-topped coffee table (family room) and nowhere else. Now a big towel and a wide bowl sit smack-dab in the middle of that table all the time. Heaven forbid that we’d have a rain and I’d have forgotten to put the bowl on the table, so it’s safer to leave it there all the time. Next step is to contact a leak detection company and have them make a go of it.

Recently I’ve subscribed to MasterCook’s online sync (currently $35.00/year), which gives me the ability to access all of my recipes from my phone because all the recipes that live on my kitchen computer as synced to the ones at the MasterCook website – those 4,000 recipes (and counting – I think yesterday I input about 12 recipes) I’ve input into the MasterCook program. Previously, if I was out, I could access only my blog to look up my recipes, but of course I couldn’t get to all the recipes I have in my to-try file. Now I can do that when I’m at the grocery store and forgot to bring the recipe with me, or forgot to make a shopping list. I use Alexa to add items to my shopping list, but sometimes I simply forget to do even that!

I’ll keep my blog up and available for awhile. And maybe in a month or so I’ll miss it so much I’ll start back up again. You never know! But if you’ve ever planned to go back and look at older recipes and download them, you might want to do it. But for now, the blog will just “be there.” You’re welcome to email me with questions.

carolyn AT tastingspoons.com

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Another one of those . . . do you trust me? Make this. So delicious and not difficult, though there are several steps to getting this done. You can use prepared fig jam, but I’d recommend making the sauce/jam from scratch, which uses an entire bottle of Port.

One of the cooking class groups I attend is maybe going to close down. Just can’t quite get enough people to be there on a regular basis, and lots of the attenders don’t want to host the class in their homes. Some homes are more conducive to a class setting than others. My friend Cherrie hosted the group a week or so ago, and Tarla Fallgatter, the instructor, made a super varied menu of holiday sides. I’ll be posting some of the recipes from the class, even though I couldn’t eat the dressing (stuffing), or the cake dessert. I had one bite and determined the cake was a winner, though. And I nibbled on the mushrooms and sausage in the dressing.

So, this appetizer . . . it’s a gorgonzola cheese mixture (mellowed with cream cheese), layered in a round bowl with the fig/port mixture (made from dried figs) in between. You serve it with walnuts on the side (a real great taste companion) and crackers.

What’s GOOD: the flavor, first and foremost. The port-sweetened fig jam is just stellar in this dish, and the creaminess of the cream cheese/gorgonzola layers, the crunch of the walnut with each bite. Altogether wonderful.

What’s NOT: nothing, other than taking the time to reduce down the Port mixture until it becomes a kind of syrup – don’t let it burn up because you’re not watching it!!

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Most of you won’t appreciate what a masterpiece I think this is. Those of you who are willing to eat wheat and lectins, etc. can disregard this post.

It’s only been in the last 4-6 weeks that I’ve been feeling a frustration with my Plant Paradox diet, the one that doesn’t allow beans, rice, potatoes, winter squashes, bread, corn, tortillas, peas, corn, wheat flour of any kind, etc. For about 8 months I’ve been following the Stephen Gundry diet, and it’s still working, albeit very slowly. But as Christmas was approaching, I was feeling a lot of sadness that I wouldn’t be able to enjoy my favorite Bishop’s Bread since it contains a flour-based batter. I decided I was going to “fix” that. I began researching online at several websites that offer recommendations about how to adapt a recipe to GF or LF (lectin-free) or both.

Initially I began with creating a combination of alternate “flours.” It’s 2:1:1 of almond flour, coconut flour and cassava flour (the latter is a flour made from yuca, a tuber, which also produces tapioca). These flours are readily available now at some mainstream grocery stores. I buy the almond flour at Costco, and the other two I bought locally, but have also purchased on amazon. I also purchased xanthan gum, an ingredient you’ll often find in GF foods – it’s not a requirement, but it helps hold things together – baked goods mostly. I also learned that it’s best to double the amount of leavening – in this case it was baking powder, since the rising agent has to work harder in GF mixtures to accomplish the same amount of lift.

With trepidation I began mixing up my bread. First I mixed up my alternative sugar too – I used half Swerve and half regular sugar – with eggs. You don’t get the same kind of lemony smooth texture from Swerve, but I mixed them well enough. I’d added the xanthan gum and baking powder to the flour mixture. And just before combining everything I tossed in the halved maraschino cherries, chocolate chips (Ghiradelli dark) and chopped walnuts into the flour mixture. Technically I shouldn’t have sugar, the sweetened cherries or any chocolate less than 90% cacao. But to enjoy this treat, I figured I wouldn’t be using all that much of it. Or eating all that much of it.

The batter was scraped into a bread pan – I used a 9” loaf pan, but next time I might try to use one of my narrower pans instead as this loaf isn’t as high as usual. In the photo at top, those are 2 slices of the bread you can see, each about 1 1/2 inches high. I baked the loaf for 45 minutes and it was almost over done, but it seemed good as it cooled. I couldn’t wait to upend it and slice off a piece. I waited about an hour and was just thrilled when I took my first bite. Oh, heaven!

When I make this again, I will increase the amount of batter, but leave the additions the same, which will take longer to bake, of course. But I’m a happy camper enjoying a narrow slice of this every other day or so. I mixed up a bigger batch of the alternative flours so I can try it in some other recipe, maybe for a biscuit kind of thing.

What’s GOOD: this means I can enjoy this treat during December after all, although I should be limited on how much. I’m rationing it out to myself so it won’t be gone by Christmas. The bread tastes every bit as good as the regular version and I was happy with the light crumb of the bread/batter aspect. It’s not heavy at all.

What’s NOT: only the acquiring of the oddball alternative flours. Otherwise, this was a cinch.

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Every December a group of girlfriends get together for breakfast at one of our homes. It was my turn.

The rest of the year, every couple of weeks, we meet at a Corner Bakery and catch up with our lives, our children, grandchildren, our dogs and cats, our travels, our reading and just general “life.” We’ve been meeting for about 35 years. Since we meet quite early, I needed to make something that I could complete likkety-split. This seemed like a good recipe to make that happen.

First you begin with a sheet of defrosted puff pastry. It is rolled out a little bit more than it is as it comes in the box, but didn’t require much to get it to an 8×10 size. Onto the baking sheet it went. With a sharp knife you score a line all around the outside edge of the puff pastry – this allows the edge to rise up (and kind of become a ridge/rim so the filling doesn’t leak out). Then I mixed up some crème fraiche and a bunch of grated Gruyere cheese. That was spread all over the interior of the puff pastry. Into a hot oven it went for about 14 minutes. I waited until all of my friends were here before I put this in the oven. When it came out of the oven at that point the filling part was golden brown all over and smelled lovely! Onto the top I placed about 4-5 slices of already crisped bacon, cut into little pieces, then I cracked 3 eggs. At this point you time it carefully – 7-10 minutes back in the oven to make the eggs sunny-side up. At 7 minutes the whites were still not cooked. At 9 minutes they were done, maybe even over-done. Then you use a knife to cut kind of irregular pieces, giving each person a bunch of the pastry/bacon part and one egg. Oh, I hadn’t sprinkled the top with chives when I snapped the photo.

There’s a photo after I’d cracked the eggs onto the tart. One yolk broke and it wasn’t very pretty (I ate that one). If I did this again, I’d probably try to get 4 eggs onto the piece – the recipe said it fed 4, but you only put 3 eggs onto the sheet. Strange. I’ve adjusted the recipe below for that. I’d recommend large or even medium eggs and do try to get 4 onto the tart. I made both sheets of puff pastry and then had 6 eggs altogether – should have done 8. And no, I didn’t eat any of the puff pastry – I ate the egg and bacon only and got some of the cheesy mixture too underneath the eggs. All the guests enjoyed it. The cheese added just a great flavor to the whole tart. This could be something you’d make on Christmas morning. Grate the cheese the night before and mix it  up with the crème fraiche. You could even do the bacon the day before too. Then it’s just a matter of rolling out the pastry, chilling it for 15 minutes, it said, then you put the toppings on and bake. The other thing I would do – making this again – I have 2 ovens – I would have used both, because even with switching the 2 pans halfway through and turning them around, one sheet didn’t cook up as nicely golden brown.

What’s GOOD: easy to make, really. Lovely presentation. It looked better once I had the chives sprinkled all over the top. Some of my guests didn’t eat the egg yolk, but they ate everything else around it and the pastry. I served this with fresh fruit (blueberries, raspberries and blackberries) and I had some slices of Dario’s Olive Oil Cake with Rosemary and Pine Nuts in the freezer, and since it’s not a very sweet cake, I thought it would work well with the breakfast. It did. I served mimosas and hot coffee.

What’s NOT: nothing really, except planning ahead to defrost the puff pastry for 24 hours before making this. And don’t use extra large eggs – even medium eggs would be good. I used large. Watch the eggs carefully during the 7-10 minute cooking time. Mine went from not done at 7 minutes to over-done at 9 minutes. But then, everyone’s oven is different.

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Really I’m not certain what parts of this soup make it Burmese-inspired, but what it is, is a 10 in flavor! MAKE THIS!

This recipe came from Food52, that website that is just chock-a-block full of recipes and ideas, posting about 8-10 new things every day, almost. Since sweet potato is something I can have on my diet (in small amounts) I decided to use up a sweet potato I’d purchased some weeks ago and needed to be used! I had a package of boneless chicken thighs in the freezer, so those were defrosted first, then they were marinated for a day in a mixture of turmeric, powdered ginger, ground coriander and a dash of oil.

Once I was ready to make the soup (which didn’t take all that long to do) I whizzed up in the food processor a handful of cilantro STEMS, some fresh garlic and a shallot. I was supposed to add a hot chile, but I forgot! Meanwhile, I used a big deep pot and I browned the sweet potato (peeled, cubed) in a bit of EVOO until at least 2 sides were golden-browned. It took 3 batches as you don’t want to crowd the pan (would steam rather than brown) and those were set aside. Then the chicken was added in and the pieces nicely browned for about 4-6 minutes, then that mixture I’d done in the food processor was added and allowed to cook a bit. Wow, the flavor wafting from the pan had my mouth watering. Then in went chicken stock and the sweet potatoes were added back in. Pan was covered and it simmered for about 15 minutes. The can of coconut milk was added, some fish sauce, broccoli and bok choy plus a bit of salt too. It simmered just long enough to smooth out. I didn’t eat it that day – I cooled it and refrigerated it overnight (and the coconut milk “fat” congealed on the top – but put that back into the soup – do NOT throw it out thinking it’s not healthy). I heated it up in the microwave and added some cilantro on top. I was supposed to add a quarter of a lime – I forgot to do that, too. I also didn’t make the fried shallot topping just because.

What’s GOOD: I just love-loved this soup. Everything about it. The broth is super-flavorful from the spices and the garlic and cilantro. The broth is thin – don’t expect a thick soup – it’s not. (Although you certainly could add rice or whiz up some of the sweet potato in the broth to thicken it some.)  The pieces of chicken thigh were flavorful and tender. The soup was outstanding. I have a friend who is 75% Burmese – I asked her what veggies she would add – she suggested adding the broccoli and bok choy (not in the original recipe), so I’ve added those into into the ingredient list.

What’s NOT: only that it’s best to start this a day ahead, or two, because the chicken needs to marinate overnight, and the soup is best made a day ahead, as with all soups. Otherwise, the time to make the actual soup was only about 35-45 minutes total.

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Chocolate and peanut butter, plus nuts. What’s there not to like in a cookie?

These cookies come from daughter, Sara. She loves to bake, and even though she’s following Weight Watcher’s (and has lost 40 pounds) she still bakes for her family (husband and HS senior son and for daughter at Clemson – she ships packages to Sabrina regularly – and she bakes for the small staff at their business, and for customers). She may have a bite or two, but she’s got lots of will power. Anyway, she made these cookies and everyone raved about them. I didn’t try them as I was sure I’d eat an entire cookie. Not on my diet, either.

I record all of Ina Garten’s programs, and I’d remembered when she made these on her show, thinking to myself, what a name for a cookie? Globs? But, okay. They’re similar to one of those cloud cookies. But the ingredients here are somewhat different.

Sara’s only comments were – be sure the eggs are at room temp. She made this recipe twice, and the 2nd time she used chilled eggs, and there was definitely a difference in the volume of the cookie. So be forewarned! She also mentioned to use walnut HALVES – not finely diced – you want to encounter the texture of the nut.

These cookies were gone in a flash – that’s all I’ll say – does that tell you enough? Sara made hers smaller – she used a cookie scoop rather than 1/2 cup portions (which makes a really big cookie) so adjust according to your own taste.

What’s GOOD: the texture, the chocolate, the crunch.

What’s NOT: not a thing, so everyone said!

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If you’re a fan of almond in cookies, oh, this one’s for you.

Since I didn’t actually eat these . . . I made them, served them, gave all the remaining cookies to my guests to take home, but I didn’t have any . . . I can’t tell you from my own taste buds that they’re sensational, but from the feedback I received when I served them to one of my book club evenings, this cookie gets rave reviews.

The recipe came from another blog, The Runaway Spoon, a blog I read regularly. Apparently this is an old recipe of Perre’s; one she’s been making for years and years. The cookies are easy to make – as long as you have a fresh tube of almond paste. Not marzipan in the tube, but almond paste. I’ve learned over the years to NOT buy one to keep in my pantry. They simply don’t keep – they get dry and hard as a rock = unusable. So buy a fresh one and start with the simple shortbread type base for these cookies (butter, sugar, eggs, flour, salt and the almond paste). It’s pressed into a 9×13 baking dish and baked for an hour. During the last 5 minutes before they come out of the oven you need to mix up the glaze – powdered sugar, almond extract and milk, and then you try to spread it around on the top of the hot cookie.

There isn’t much of the glaze. So when I handed my friend Ann the recipe that evening, since she said she needed to make these immediately, I suggested that she double the amount of the glaze. She did, but thought that was too much, so after she made them yet again, she and I agreed to 1 1/2 times the amount of glaze – that way you’ll have enough to spread all the way out to the edges, but not so much it might overwhelm the tender crumb of the base bars.

At this point you merely let the bars cool completely, then slice them up for serving. I cut two sizes (I had several other desserts – 2 cakes and another cookie) to serve that night, so I knew some of my guests would want a small cookie rather than a big one. I was surprised . . . . several people took the big ones and a few went back for seconds. Big thanks to Perre over at the Runaway Spoon for this great recipe.

What’s GOOD: from what I heard from my guests, it was the almond flavor that took them all by surprise and just said YES! It’s a kind of a chewy cookie/bar – how do I know that? – only because of the texture when I cut them. I could tell. But the reports from my guests were a definite thumbs up. (Do I hate being on a diet? Yes, especially in November and December!)

What’s NOT: only that you need to buy fresh almond paste to make this.

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