It may be a little hard to see, but the chicken breast has been sliced – I had large boneless, skinless breasts, so I could have fed 4 people, I swear, with just 2 breasts. The glaze/sauce is subtle but really, really good.

The recipe for this came from Food & Wine magazine, although it called for bone-in chicken breasts, which I didn’t have. I searched around the ‘net and found a few other bloggers or sites that prepared this chicken, and one suggestion was to reduce the amount of sauce. I did that, although when finished, I wished I’d had a little extra to drizzle on the finished, sliced chicken. So, I went back to the recipe and upped the amount of sauce from what I prepared. But, if you or your family like more stuff to drizzle, do more sauce that indicated below. Someone else had used part butter, part olive oil. I liked that option. SO, all that said, the recipe below is changed a bit from the magazine’s version.

First I pounded the chicken breasts to an even thickness (about 1/3 inch) with a piece of plastic wrap covering the meat. Then you briefly melt the butter in the baking dish/pan in the oven – (don’t use a big, honkin’ pan as the butter/oil will spread all over – confine it to a baking dish that’s just a bit bigger than the chicken breasts, however many you’re making). Don’t melt it for more than a few minutes or the butter will burn. You can mix all the other ingredients in at the same time (Dijon mustard, maple syrup and curry powder) but unless you watch this very, very carefully, the mixture WILL burn (mine nearly did). Then you dunk the chicken in the glaze mixture (mix it right on the pan – see photo). Once the butter melts, whisk it just a bit, then do the dunking. Turn the breasts over a couple of times to get as much of the mixture on the chicken as possible.

Then it’s merely baking the chicken until it reaches 160°F. Now, I’ll warn you – use an instant read thermometer if at all possible –  when I baked this it took about 15 minutes, but depending on how thick your chicken is, it might even be LESS than that. If it’s not quite there, just continue baking for another 2-3 minutes before you check it again. If it goes higher than 160°, trust me, the chicken will be dry.

I used frozen chicken breasts, thawed, of course, and I’ll tell you for sure – this was SO juicy. I was vigilant, though, about the temperature. I hate-hate dry chicken. So do yourself a favor and use the thermometer. I had a little bit of the wild rice salad with watercress left over from a few days ago, and it was perfect with this chicken (you can see it in the background on the plate.

What’s GOOD:  The flavors were subtle, believe it or not! The curry hardly could be tasted (I know, doesn’t sound right, but it wasn’t a strong flavor at all). You’re aware that there’s a little bit sweet, a little bit sharp (the mustard) but when mixed together it’s quite mellow. Liked it a LOT, and it was SO SO easy! I had dinner prepared in about 20 minutes. I have left overs of this, and I may put it on a salad. Actually I have 3 more meals of it ahead of me, so I’ll need to think about other ways to eat it. Very juicy and tender meat. Liked it all a lot.

What’s NOT: I can’t think of anything – even the pounding of the chicken took about one minute total. If you have some other left over veggies or salad to serve with it, it’s a cinchy easy dinner.

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

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Recently, I was contacted by one of the authors of this book, Clint Marsh (co-written by Karima Cammell). The book, The Troll Cookbook: A Taste of Something Different: Simple Foods Any Troll Can Make IS definitely different as it says right in the sub-title. Let me just say that from the get-go. When the author contacted me (to see if I’d accept a copy and write about it) he explained a bit about the book. I wasn’t sure that I was the right “market” for the book. I don’t can or preserve foods. I don’t forage for nettles. And I don’t identify in any way with trolls. But he persevered and insisted that I just might be the ideal candidate for reading the book.

Now, I realize, calling this a Troll cookbook is a little bit tongue in cheek – well, that is if you don’t believe in trolls. I do not. But if you’re of the bent that there are trolls out and about, that little wild beasties lurk everywhere, especially at night, then this book might be exactly down your alley! Note, if you can see it, in the bottom right of the cover’s art, there’s a sweet little hedgehog. I think it’s wise they didn’t put any art renderings of trolls on the cover. There are, however, many colorplates in the book, of all types of trolls, mostly sitting around fires or in kitchens, or foraging for things. Which is how the authors bridge the gap between trolls and humans. In the book, they say:

“ . . . Fire – and more specifically the cookfire of the kitchen – is the link which connects trolls and humans. Unlike humans, the trolls have not been led astray by the lure of expedience, nor have they been dazzled by the bright lights of modern technology. . . . they continue to live as they always have, in touch with the realities of the natural world and the rhythms of the year. They practice their magic every day through gathering, combining, and preparing ingredients in intuitive proportions and serving them with appreciation.”

The book contains a myriad of “recipes,”  divided up by seasons, and includes such things as making a composting mixture (I suppose that could be called a recipe?), that are perhaps on the fringes of the cookbook world. But interspersed between such things as stone soup, how to make vinegar and to can capers, prepare dandelion rootbeer, there are other more standard things like coffee can cake, scrapple (my DH loved scrapple, a staple in and around Philadelphia – not me, no thanks), rhubarb bread, garden raid stew, stuffed dates, quince paste, rose hip jam, and dozens and dozens of others. Even bathtub gin. Oh my.

If my DH were still here, he would repeat for me a legendary story about his father, who owned a ship chandlery in Bivalve, New Jersey, during the depression (and during prohibition). This was a man who had his required 2 Manhattans per evening, and that was it but not during those years when no one could actually BUY alcohol. But there were sources, I guess. . .  I don’t want to know about that part.

There were any number of derelicts that frequented the streets (near the store) during that time. Many were sort of acquaintances who were down on their luck. Life was difficult, money was nearly non-existent. The details elude me, but I recall that my DHs father made a “deal” with the derelicts, that if they’d do a whole lot of work around the store (sweeping, cleaning, scrubbing, washing sidewalks and scrubbing the old bathtub at the back of the store until it shone) he’d cook up a batch of bathtub gin for them. Meanwhile, he went home to procure some of the perfume from his wife’s dresser, and it was used to “perfume” the bathtub gin. As my DH told the story, they worked like crazy, he made the gin with the little tiny squirt of perfume; they drank. Since this was during prohibition, bathtub gin was a real novelty and quite a treasure. As the story goes, one of the derelicts had a car, and the next morning he left the store when they’d drunk themselves into somewhat oblivion, and he barfed out the driver’s window. When next he appeared at the old stomping ground on main street, where the barf had dripped down the door, it had completely taken off the paint. No wonder it did something to everyone’s stomach!

So, here, for your reading pleasure, is a recipe – a troll’s recipe – for bathtub gin:

ONE GALLON BATHTUB GIN
Half a gallon of water
1 1/2 ounces sugar
Half a gallon of grain alcohol
1/3 spoonful of juniper oil

Combine and simmer the sugar and 1/2 cup of the water, stirring until all the sugar dissolves. Stir juniper oil into the alcohol in a large cookpot or a [CLEAN, CLEAN] bathtub, then add the rest of the water and the syrup, stirring to combine. If you’re a troll, it’s suggested you can vary the mixture with peppercorns, citrus peels or crushed cardamom pods. Or in my F-I-L’s case, a drop or two of his wife’s perfume.

If any of you are interested in this book, the first person who lives here in the continental U.S. and contacts me and will send me $5 to ship it, I’ll mail it to you. It’s brand new, obviously.

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This post is going “up” on July 3rd. Just before you might need a nice, different salad for the celebration of America’s 4th of July, Independence Day. Since we should be remembering our forefathers, and their sometimes friendliness to the native American people, this one is appropriate.

This recipe has been posted before, about 5 years ago. My D-I-L gave me a cookbook from the Mitsitam Café (at the Smithsonian Native American Museum), and when she and the family had visited the museum, they had lunch at the café, and ordered this wonderful salad. It’s so good and worth repeating. As I write this, I’m taking the salad to their house to celebrate Karen’s birthday, and this is the salad she requested. I think Powell remembered I’d made it before so he asked for a repeat. He’s doing duck as the main course.

I’ve updated my photos on the 2011 post (with the ones I took today) which highlight the freshness of the ingredients – the just slightly chewy wild rice, the crunchy carrots, toasted pine nuts and pumpkin seeds, and with no question, the watercress is the #2 star of the dish (wild rice, obviously, must be the #1 star). You do want to make the wild rice ahead – it needs to chill, and it is so easy to put this together about an hour before serving. Adding the dressing (apple cider vinegar, honey, canola oil + S&P) gives time to be absorbed into the rice (and maybe add a jot more dressing when you DO serve it).

Ideally, you’ll eat it all – in which case you can toss the watercress in with the salad. If you think you might have leftovers, either add the watercress on top (and maybe add a bit more half way through as people take salad) OR optionally, keep some watercress reserved, remove the watercress that got left in the salad (it gets withered and is not appetizing after a day or so if it’s been soaking in the dressing) and just add more watercress when you serve it the next time.

I’m a fanatic about watercress – I don’t like the “baby cress” they offer at some grocery stores these days – the one that’s in a root ball. It bears little or no resemblance to full-grown watercress that has that peppery bite to it. If that’s all you can find, well, use it I guess, or buy arugula instead. It’s not the same, but it does have that peppery bite that I’d be looking for in this recipe.

It’s a very pretty salad to look at. It’s healthy (although there IS an oil/vinegar dressing on it), hearty, and could serve as a vegetarian entrée as well. Throw some quinoa in there and you’d for sure have ample protein – or maybe a can of rinsed and drained garbanzo beans. Not authentic to the recipe, but I think it would be tasty in it.

What’s GOOD: I love wild rice (it’s not really a rice, but a wild grain) and it contains good-for-you stuff. The crunchiness of the salad is part of what appeals to me – the dressing is fairly innocuous, but it is a good foil for the carb aspect of the salad. There are some chopped green onions plus a few dried cranberries (think Pilgrims) in there too, and I just love-love the watercress. If watercress wasn’t so expensive (I had to buy 5 bunches at $1.29 each) I’d reverse the order of things and make the wild rice the #2 item here. Either way, though, this salad is delicious. It’s a beautiful looking salad too. Don’t overcook the wild rice – it’s not very nice when it’s “popped” as it does when it’s overly cooked – I started watching it at 40 minutes and it was done to my liking at 45 minutes.

What’s NOT: the only thing I’d say is the washing and prepping of the watercress. It took me about 30 minutes to wash, then pinch the young leaf bunches off the watercress stems (bigger watercress stems are almost woody and certainly not very tasty). But then, I was making this to serve 18 people. If you only bought 1-2 bunches it wouldn’t be so formidable a task. Do plan ahead – make the rice the day before if at all possible. Otherwise, everything about it is pretty easy. I rinsed and picked the watercress the day before and rolled all those tender leaves in tea towels to get all the moisture out.

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My friend Darlene grows wonderful tomatoes every summer. She shared a little batch of these tiny guys. Aren’t they beautiful? They taste like sugar!

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It’s been decades since I made this pie. And it’s SO easy to prepare (well, IF you have frozen pie crusts standing by). You can buy Bosc pears year ‘round now, so anytime could be pear pie season.

A few weeks ago I made an astounding pear cobbler I wrote up about just a few days ago. I don’t exactly post my recipes in order as I make them, but that pear cobbler made me think about a recipe I hadn’t made for decades, my Mom’s pear pie. I had to go hunting for the recipe – it was in my little orange binder that I used when I first began to have enough recipes to save. Some of the recipes in there are in my mother’s handwriting, though this one was not – my mom must have kind of dictated it to me. It’s hardly a recipe, so I had to write it a bit better for posting here.

The pear cobbler is long gone – I served it to a group and it all disappeared except for one serving that’s in my freezer. But it certainly did resonate in my palate, telling me to eat more pears. Then, in the interim I either read or heard from somewhere that when you’re baking pears, the best ones to use are Bosc. Well, it was too late; I’d already bought 4 Bartlett pears with the thought that I’d make this pear pie. I also bought a package of 2 Marie Callender’s pie crust shells (frozen). I know they’re good; good enough for this pie, for sure. I don’t bake pies very often – always because making the crust is just such a nuisance. That will forever be changed now that Marie’s pie shells are available. Whoopee! I have a number of pies I’d like to make, some that date back to the 60s that I’ve never bothered to include here on my blog. I’d also like to update two pies that are old favorites.

So, this pie. I don’t know the history of it, other than I know it was my mother’s mother’s recipe. My grandmother’s name was Isis, and she was a very good baker. She and my grandfather lived all their lives on a farm in the central valley here in California – in Stanislaus (pronounced STAN-is-law) County, near Modesto. My grandmother cooked 3 meals a day for the entirety of their marriage, I imagine. There were years when there was almost no money (my mother went to junior college, then worked and HAD to send money home to her parents because they might have lost the farm altogether). She had 2 older brothers and 2 sisters, and I expect they may have sent money home too if they had extra during those skim depression years. I have a number of recipes from my grandmother Isis. I recently bought some apricots, thinking I’d make an old time recipe for an apricot cobbler. That recipe might have belonged to my great aunt. Not sure.

Anyway, this pear pie is just so easy to make. I had 4 Bartlett pears (use Bosc if you have them) and after peeling them I just sliced them directly into the frozen pie crust. See photo above. They were quite juicy – maybe too juicy. Then I mixed up the “filling,” which was merely sugar, a little bit of flour, an egg and a jot of vanilla. That was stirred up and drizzled all over the top of the pears. See photo at right. I used a spatula to kind of help the topping/filling to cover most of the pears. Then I dotted the top with butter and into a hot oven it went for about 10 minutes. Then the temp was turned down to 325° and baked for another 35-45 minutes, until the filling was golden brown and set.

Letting it cool was essential, and it held onto the heat for quite a while. My mother almost always served this with whipped cream, but you could also use vanilla ice cream. I intended to sprinkle the top of the pears with cardamom, but forgot in my rush to get the topping on the pears. I did use almond flavoring rather than vanilla, however.

Photo here shows the pie with butter dotting the top, ready to go into the oven. I thought this might have been a Betty Crocker recipe, but no. I just searched for it and this is nothing like any of Betty’s pear pies. I’d guess it’s a depression-era recipe because it calls for no other ingredients like sour cream or even any spices. The sugar mixes with the egg and the presumption is that any of the juices from the pears will firm up with the flour added into the filling/topping. The eggy mixture does slip down between the layers of pears and surrounds the pears.

I enjoyed 2 slices, then gave the rest of it to my neighbors, who have 2 little girls with hungry appetites. Both girls do swimming and water polo – the mom is a full time “bus” driver for the girls.

What’s GOOD: if you’re looking for straight-forward pear taste, this is it. Nothing else, really, to distract your taste buds – pears, sugar, a little flour, an egg, flavoring and butter dotting the top. That’s all there is to it. It’s very juicy – if you use Bosc they may not be quite so much so. I actually liked it plain with no topping at all.

What’s NOT: really nothing – it’s easy to make if you have already made pie  shells, or will buy frozen ones. It took about 10-15 minutes to put it all together and stick it in the oven.

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Cobblers don’t always look sensational, but don’t let the appearance fool you. This is one fabulous, must-make-this kind of homey, comforting dessert. Get ye to the store for some pears and do it!

So, even though I promised myself I wouldn’t buy any more cookbooks, last year I succumbed to a fruit dessert one called Rustic Fruit Desserts: Crumbles, Buckles, Cobblers, Pandowdies, and More by Cory Schreiber. I think cobblers are just about my favorite dessert, so to have a cookbook that’s all about such desserts, well, I just couldn’t NOT buy it. I’ve posted two other recipes from this book already, a Peach, Blackberry & Almond Crisp, and a Stone Fruit Tea Cake made with peaches. The crisp was my favorite of the two, but now with this one, I’m not so sure.

My mother used to make a pear pie, a creamy filling (sour cream, I think) with fresh pears. I loved that pie. I should make it – I just don’t make many pies. Any day I’d prefer a cobbler or a crisp. I’m a sucker for ordering one at restaurants if they have it on a menu. But to tell you the truth, I think I’ve been disappointed with every one I’ve ever ordered out. They never use enough fruit. And, without fail, they make them too sweet for me. Anybody else noticed that? Some had good-enough toppings, but restaurants are in the business of making money, so they may cut corners (using a pre-made streusel, for instance, or just plopping a piece of flaky dough on top). But when you make it yourself, you know what goes into it and it’s made with love! Of course.

I’d purchased a bag of 12 pears at Costco. What was I thinking? Oh my goodness. And yet, I needed to make a dessert for a gathering at my house, and it called for 10 large pears. Bingo! They’d ripened on my kitchen counter for a few days (and I lost one that had gotten bruised, I think). The day I needed this dessert the pears were to perfect ripeness. Yippee. That’s one of the problems with cooking/baking with pears – you can’t predict when they’ll be at their peak, because they’re almost never ripe in the bins at the grocery store. I used 11 pears – but I don’t think you’d want to use any less than 10 – pears wilt/sink/flatten when baked since they’re filled with some water/juice.

So, first you cut up the pears and combine them quickly in a bowl with brown sugar, cornstarch and spices. Don’t go off to talk on the phone – you don’t want the pears to turn brown . . . then they were turned into a large greased baking dish (9×13). Do use ceramic or glass, not metal. Then you mix up the biscuits.

What can I tell you – oh gosh, these biscuits are divine. First you whiz up some toasted and skinned hazelnuts (along with sugar, flour, baking powder and salt) in the food processor until it’s a fairly fine meal. I used the processor to add the butter (the recipe says to use your fingertips or a pastry blender) but I took the lazy way out. Just don’t over-process it once you add the butter. The dough was crumbly and even though the recipe indicates such, I added another tablespoon of cream so it would barely come together. It’s really a very dry looking biscuit. Then you roll it out to a rectangle, cut it into 10 square shapes. Those are slightly overlapped (that’s what the “shingled” means in the recipe title) in the baking dish. The biscuits do completely fill the baking dish with only a tiny bit of fruit peeking out around the edges. See photo.

So there, at left is the photo of the cobbler before it was baked. The biscuits are brushed on the tops with a tablespoon of heavy cream. You could add a sprinkling of crystallized sugar on top if you’d like that look. It’s baked (partly with foil on top) and is done in about 55 minutes at which time the biscuits are gloriously golden brown and the filling is bubbling around all the edges. You remove the baking dish to cool, but serving this warm is just about heaven-sent.

The book’s author says this is best eaten the day it’s made – but if you absolutely must have some left overs, have it for breakfast, she says. Okay, I did that. It’s not overly sweet, so with a bit of half and half poured over it, oh gosh, it was delicious for my breakfast. If you do have any of it left over, leave it out at room temp (in other words, do NOT refrigerate it) and just cover it with a tea towel. You can also bake this some hours ahead, reheat it in a 300°F oven for about 15-20 minutes. There at right is a photo of the baked cobbler, all golden brown. My mouth is watering since I made this a couple of weeks ago and it was completely gone the next day – I gave some to friends and kept ONE serving which is now in my freezer. Although you have biscuits for 10, when I put it out for people to serve themselves, nobody took a whole biscuit – so you could make the biscuits smaller, or just know that it will likely serve more than 10 people.

What’s GOOD: everything about this cobbler is good. Absolutely everything – the pears, the bubbling sauce, the hazelnuts in the biscuits, the texture of the biscuits. Oh my. It’s a keeper. Do save this recipe, my friends, and make it soon. If you use Bartlett pears, you don’t have to peel them, by the way.

What’s NOT: only that she says it’s not good to keep it past the day it’s made. I thought it was pretty darned good the next day, but that’s what’s in the recipe. Just so you know. Make a half a recipe in an 8×8 pan if you don’t want enough to serve 10-12.

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Can I just say, this was one of the best-est dishes I’ve eaten of late. I feel like I’d like to devour that entire platter. What is it? Multi-colored carrots roasted, then tossed with a unique kind of dressing that contains raisins, hazelnuts and thyme. It’s serve with Greek yogurt and sumac flecked pita chips (at left on the platter).

Some weeks ago I attended a cooking class where this was prepared. I took pictures, but they didn’t come out all that well, so lo, and behold, another blogger, Adde of thisishowicook.com made this lovely dish and kindly has let me share HER photo she took when she made it. I’ll be making this sometime soon, then I’ll take my own photos. Thanks, Adde.

This masterpiece isn’t hard. But it does take a bit of time to do – the carrots need to be prepped (easy) then tossed with oil and spices and they’re roasted for about 30 minutes. Also not hard, but then you want to make the pita chips slathered with some oil and peppered with sumac and baked/toasted in the oven for 12-15 minutes. Then, the mixture you eventually toss with the carrots must be prepped – raisins, nuts, thyme, sumac cooked in a bit of butter. Once the carrots are done, you toss them with this raisin mixture and you platter them. Now, I think Adde did it according to the original Sunset recipe – yogurt on the bottom, then the carrots and pita chips. Our instructor put the carrots down first, then plopped Greek yogurt on top. Your choice as to how you do it.

What I will tell you for sure – this dish is off the charts. The carrots become soft and succulent and take on such a lovely sweetness from the caramelization going on during the roasting. The combo of raisins and hazelnuts is brilliant – I’d never have put those two together, nor combine them with carrots! Then you complement them with the yogurt and pita chips. Oh yum.

This can be served as an appetizer, using the sumac pita chips as your scoop, but it would be best to have small plates and forks as the carrots might be a bit difficult to eat. Or, in the class I attended, the chef served it as a side dish with chicken, which was also very lovely.

What’s GOOD: Oh my gosh. I just couldn’t get enough of this – probably it’s the sugar/sweet taste of the carrots, but complemented by the raisins and hazelnuts just makes this dish unctuous.

What’s NOT: well, you can’t throw this together in 30 minutes – it takes a bit longer. Hopefully you have hazelnuts on hand, and Greek yogurt AND the sumac. And pita bread rounds and multi-colored carrots. For me, this will require a special trip to the grocery store to make sure I have everything.

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Oh, I want to just reach right into that picture and grab a small handful. Don’t you? They look oiled and maybe even mushy, but trust me, they’re crispy and just tossed with a tiny bit of oil and all the spices just before serving.

A few weeks ago I went to a cooking class – with a French chef – although she made a dinner of what she called Mediterranean food. Mostly I’d say the dinner was Moroccan. She cooked with a lot of zaatar, sumac, baharat and a tiny bit of fennel pollen. And one dish that was accented with apple cider molasses, which I’d never even heard of before. You’ll have the recipes eventually. All except for the pilaf she made, which was okay, but I think my own recipe, for Mujadara is better. Mujadara is a Lebanese version of pilaf. Hers was called a lentil pilaf with baharat (an herb & spice mix) and then she sprinkled some very pricey fennel pollen on top. I don’t think I got any on my portion – at least I couldn’t see any.

So, back to these chickpeas. Start off with 2 cans of garbanzos (chickpeas), drained, rinsed, and then you must let them rest and dry for an hour or so on paper towels – to DRY. Then the beans are spread out onto rimmed baking sheets lined with parchment – don’t crowd them – you’ll need at least 2 trays to do this right. They they’re roasted for quite awhile. If you’re using both trays in one oven then switch them back and forth and front to back so they all get dried and toasty. It takes about 35-45 minutes depending on your oven. Taste one now and then – you don’t want to to taste like corn nuts – that’s too much baking. But you definitely want them crispy all the way through. I’ll try this on convection bake and see how they do. Definitely don’t let them burn – that would be a total waste of them! Once they’re finally done, you need to remove a few of the skins that will have fallen off – you don’t want to serve those. The roasted beans are then tossed with a tablespoon or two or three of extra virgin olive oil and some Zaatar.

Now then, the Zaatar. I think I’ve posted a recipe for it before, but I can’t find it, if I did. At this class we got Caroline’s recipe for it, which is in the recipe below. It’s a combination of sumac, dried thyme, dried marjoram, dried oregano, roasted sesame seeds and salt.

You can see the parts of the mixture at left – Caroline made a big batch of it because she used it in several dishes. You can buy already-prepared Zaatar (also written as za’atar and zatar). Penzey’s has it, and at some better markets you’ll likely find it. You DO need sumac, though, and that’s not exactly something everyone has. In the photo, the sumac (the red stuff) is the largest component. You may find some zaatar without sumac, but I truly don’t think it would be authentic. Sumac has a kind of lemony taste – tart – but altogether delicious. It’s used in lots of Mediterranean cooking, but mostly from the southern side, like Syria, Morocco and Egypt. I’d guess sumac bushes must grow profusely in that climate.

The recipe below makes more than you’ll need for this appetizer – you can halve the recipe, or just use the rest of it for something else within a few months. You can prepare the zaatar a few days ahead of time.

What’s GOOD: loved the crunchy texture and the combo of the zaatar on them. They’re addicting, just so you know . . .

What’s NOT: nothing other than you’ll need to source the zaatar somewhere or make your own, in which case you’ll need sumac. Don’t try to make this without the sumac.

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Healthy, but you’d never know it. Rich and creamy. Slightly green because edamame are green. No dairy in it at all – just oil and seasonings. Divine.

A few weeks ago I spent Mother’s Day with son Powell (and family) at his wife’s sister Janice’s home. They did a fabulous full-on Indian dinner catered by a great restaurant here in my neck of the woods called The Royal Khyber. Janice’s husband, though English by birth, is Indian and he’s on a first name basis with all of the staff and owners at the restaurant. When we go there we usually just tell Julian to order for us. He always orders lamb vindaloo (one of his favorites). I was particularly enamored with the ground lamb appetizer skewers. Am not sure what they were called, but they were tender, juicy and fabulous. I ate some of everything.

Janice had made this hummus with edamame which she served with a variety of fresh vegetables for dipping. She said she’d tried several similar recipes and finally settled on this one – I think it may have come from the food network, though I’m not sure. In any case, I really, really liked it, so asked Janice for the recipe, which she kindly sent.

I made this in the late morning and had that little plate full for my lunch, though I didn’t quite finish all the hummus in that bowl. I have heaps left for another day. I particularly liked it with the Persian cucumber slices, and with the more tender interior of the celery hearts. The last few bags of celery I’ve purchased have been particularly chewy and stringy. I buy organic celery because the stuff contains so much water and I want it to be non-influenced by pesticides, etc. I had to de-string several of the outer stalks and even then they were tough. Throw that bag out except for the very center.

The hummus – well, just to recap – usually it’s made with garbanzo beans – and it would be yellow. This, made with edamame was made from cooked and frozen beans (Trader Joe’s), merely defrosted and plopped into the blender along with all the other ingredients and whizzed up. I added more oil and water, and more salt and lemon juice, so I added those notes to the recipe below. I didn’t exactly measure the edamame – I think the 12 ounce bag contained about 2 cups, so I used most of it. A half a pound of cooked edamame is about 1 1/2 cups, exactly what was needed for this recipe.

I’m sure that tomorrow it will taste better once the flavors have melded together. It was so refreshing and filling. Amazingly filling, I thought. It probably would freeze okay too, just in case you need to do that. This is a really great recipe and it makes me feel good to know that I ate a very healthy lunch today. Thanks, Janice!!

What’s GOOD: the flavor, first and foremost. Very clean, tasty, creamy and filling. I particularly liked it with the cucumbers, but any veggies would be fine, even cauliflower. I don’t know about broccoli, but maybe. Carrots for sure, and celery. It might even be good in a sandwich with some lettuce, tomato and sliced mild, white cheese. It might ooze, however, just so you know.

What’s NOT: nothing I can think of – easy to make, healthy for sure. It makes a lot, so reduce the quantity if you are feeding a small group or your small family. Am sure it will keep for a several days.

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

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Do you happen to have a package of ground lamb in the freezer? Here’s a quick and easy dinner if you’ve also got some zucchini and cottage cheese. Oh, did I lose you there at cottage cheese? You’ll never know, hardly, that there’s cottage cheese in the topping. I promise.

If you’ve ever had moussaka, made the long, laborious way (making a sauce and with a lamb stew kind of thing, plus eggplant), then you know the deliciousness of it (and it’s a lot of work). It’s kind of like Moussaka is to Greece as lasagna is to Italy. They’re similar, although lasagna has pasta in it. This dish has almost no carbs, just meat, vegetables and cheese and dairy.  The limited carbs come from the cottage cheese (some), the yogurt or sour cream (some) and the tomato sauce (which is pure carbs because tomatoes are a fruit), though there’s only an 8-ounce can of the sauce in the whole casserole.

The other day I was looking up a recipe I did for my blog when it was brand-spanking new in 2007. And I started off the first paragraph talking about the dish being a casserole. And then (9 years ago) I swear the word casserole, in food circles, was an anathema. As if it was something bad that only your ancient great grandmother would make. I’m glad to see that casseroles are making a comeback – in fact I bought a cookbook a few years ago all about new-fangled casseroles.

This casserole is a revision of a recipe I posted here, years ago also – Easy Ground Beef Moussaka. It’s a winner of a quick recipe, and one that I’ve made dozens of times over the years. You briefly cook the zucchini and put it in the bottom of a 9×9 baking dish, then you cook meat with onion, garlic and spices, then add in some canned tomato sauce. That goes on top of the zucchini. Then you make the super-easy topping (cottage cheese, yogurt or sour cream, egg, Feta, and Parmesan) and it’s spread on top with another sprinkling of Parm on the very top.

So THIS RECIPE, I just revised it a bit by using ground LAMB. The zucchini is the same (see picture above), the filling is the same (although I added in some different herbs and spices – I added some dried mint to the meat mixture which is different) and the topping is identical (see the uncooked dish at right). I should have invited somebody to come for dinner, because it made plenty for about 5 people, I think. A salad on the side and maybe some bread is all you’d need for a complete meal. I didn’t make a salad or have bread – the serving of this dish was ample for my dinner.

There at left is the dish just out of the oven. I actually turned on the broiler element for about 3 minutes to get those nice crusty bits on top. But the topping is all composed of dairy and a little bit of cheese, so you don’t want to overdo the broiling.

The dish comes together in about 30 minutes, I guess, maybe a little bit more, and it bakes for 30 minutes, so you could have it on the table in about an hour.

The lamb I had was not very lamb-y tasting. Why is that? I think it was Colorado lamb, not New Zealand. I don’t know if there is a difference. But the casserole was just wonderful anyway. Maybe it’s because I grew up on casseroles. My mother used to make them frequently. The original recipe for this came from one of my mother and dad’s friends, so it’s a old-old recipe.

What’s GOOD: well, I like casseroles to begin with. This is an easy one-baking-pan dish, though you will dirty up a couple of pans doing the prep for this. I love the combo of the ground meat layer, the zucchini and then the Feta-salty-creamy topping with the melted Parmesan on top. It’s comfort food, I’m sure. And I liked this one made with lamb rather than ground beef.

What’s NOT: if you don’t like lamb, well, you won’t like this. Most people like Feta. And I promise, even if you’re a cottage cheese hater, I doubt  you’d notice. You can barely see the curds of cottage cheese in the topping, but it’s blended in with crumbles of Feta and you could easily think that’s what you were eating.

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

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