A winner of a recipe. Should be, since it’s the culmination of kitchen magic by the chefs at America’s Test Kitchen. I’ve made almond cake before (there are two on my blog archives already) but no almond cake I’ve ever tasted has been so tender, and so full of almond flavor as this one. Does that get you interested?

Saying I’m a fan of America’s Test Kitchen is certainly a true statement. I don’t think there has ever been a recipe I’ve tried from their books or the TV show that hasn’t been wonderful.  It had been a week before that I watched the program for this cake and knew I’d be making it. I needed a dessert to serve to one of my bible study groups that was meeting here at my house. We happen to be studying Romans, Paul’s letter to the people of Rome, cautioning them about their behavior. Maybe if they’d had some of this cake, they might have listened better!

This cake was really very easy to make, although there are a few steps to it – it’s not a slap-dash kind of cake. You do have to toast the almonds and you make a couple of different bowls of things before it all comes together – but it all gets mixed in the food processor at the end, it’s poured into a greased (and parchment lined) round cake pan and it bakes. The topping (almonds, sugar and lemon zest) are added after pouring the batter into the pan and there’s nothing else to it. The cake has nearly 2 cups of almonds in it, so it’s not the cheapest cake to make these days, what with the cost of almonds rising by the day. The eggs (4 of them) certainly must help with the light texture – and you do whiz them up until they’re light before mixing up the rest of it.

Getting the cake out of the pan was a bit of a challenge – I had buttered the pan (which was nonstick, by the way) AND used parchment, but it took a bit of doing to kind of un-stick the bottom corners from the pan – where the parchment met the sides – but it all came out beautifully once I gently pried all around the interior edges with my plastic spreader. It stayed together as I up-ended it onto my outstretched palm and arm and onto the cake plate it went (this, all when it was cooled).

They didn’t suggest serving it with anything, but I thought a bit of whipped cream with some almond extract in it was appropriate, and it certainly added to the intense almond flavor, but the cake, all by itself, is intensely almond-y already.

What’s GOOD: this will be the last almond cake recipe I’ll ever need to try. It’s THAT good. I loved the tender cake (texture) since many almond cakes are a bit on the firm side. Not this one – truly tender. And since I’m a big almond lover anyway, the amount of almond flavor (from the almonds themselves and from a little bit of almond extract added) it was just perfect. I highly recommend it. I also loved the addition of the whipped cream flavored with almond extract. Yummy.

What’s NOT: nothing other than the cost of almonds these days. This recipe is a keeper.

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

Tweet

Chinese in origin (I think), these little appetizer tidbits of goodness are quite easy to make. What they’re not is healthy in any way, shape, or form! There’s nothing bad in the ingredients – it’s just the frying that makes them rich, decadent, but ever-so tasty.

This appetizer is the oldest cooking class recipe I have in my collection. In fact, I didn’t even have this one entered into my MasterCook program – mostly because I hadn’t made these for about 40 years. Gosh, that one fact tells you I’m “old.” When I married the first time, way back in 1962, my then husband and I lived in Washington, D.C. for about a year. I worked for the Dept. of Agriculture during that time, and spending money on cooking classes wasn’t exactly within my budget. Then we moved to Washington State for awhile, then to Denver. It was there, back in the mid-60’s that I went to my first cooking class. I have no recollection how I found out about the class (given in someone’s home), and I still have 2 recipes from a class (or maybe more than one class). This one, and a chile relleno recipe made with canned chiles. Interestingly enough, both of the recipes were cooked in an electric frypan. Those things were very popular back then. So maybe both were made that one night and the class could have been focused on how to use the electric frypan in meal preparation. The recipe, stained with age and use (way back then) had somewhat cryptic notes – not a full-on detailed recipe as we might be used to today.

A few weeks ago – when I made these – I had a Vietnamese friend of mine come to my house and prepare a Vietnamese meal for a group of my friends. I’ll tell you about that in another post. She made spring rolls and beef pho (soup, pronounced like fuh). I rounded out the meal with appetizers (these shrimp toasts) and dessert (my lemon velvet ice cream and safari seeded cookies). So, when I was trying to figure out what to make I first searched online for Vietnamese appetizers, and mostly google came up with spring rolls. Well, we were already doing those as a first course, so I had to search farther afield, and ding-ding, this recipe came to mind. Even though it’s Chinese, not Vietnamese. Made no “never mind,” as the saying goes. They disappeared in a flash.

I forgot to take any photos of the prep process, or the frying. I was kind of busy trying to get these made just as guests were arriving, so just didn’t take the time. Here’s what’s involved. First you mince up some fresh, raw shrimp, about 1/2 cup. Then you add a couple of tablespoons of minced green onion, a dash of salt, a tablespoon of sherry (wine), a tablespoon of cornstarch and lastly, just before you’re ready to start making and frying these, 2 egg whites that have been beaten up until foamy.

I made these a couple of nights later and used the same recipe – I just didn’t turn the little toasts over to brown the other side – so here you can see the bread (on the bottom) is still just bread. And I didn’t heed my own directions – of spreading the shrimp mixture out to all the edges, so you see the bread in the oil almost got too brown. White bread slices are used – remove the crusts, then the inner portion is cut into small squares, about 1” square. You’ll get about 6 out of each slice of bread. Meanwhile, you heat up a frying pan with oil. You don’t need but about 1/4 inch of oil. I have a nice big newer electric frypan now, and I used that because you can maintain a consistent 350° with the oil – the recipe called for peanut oil, but that stuff is so darned expensive these days, I opted to use vegetable oil instead. It takes about 10 minutes to heat the oil. Then, using a spreader/knife, you spread some (a fairly tiny dab, actually) of the shrimp/egg white mixture onto the top of the little square of bread, and each one is placed shrimp side down into the hot oil.

It takes about 30 seconds for the shrimp to be done – and the edges begin to turn golden brown. In the first batch I did fry them on the other side. If you want to reduce the amount of fat you would consume with these, just cook the shrimp side only. The bread, which is not in oil at all will still be soft. You could try it that way and taste it. Do let them cool for a couple of minutes before eating them, as they’re WAY hot! You can make these in bigger squares (like 4 per slice of bread) but I think the little bitty ones make for easier finger food. Do serve napkins as they might ooze some oil onto your hands.

In the 2nd photo you can see the mustard dipping sauce. You don’t have to use the sauce, but it was pretty darned good. It added a little “bite” to the toasts.

What’s GOOD: crunchy, tasty, little bites of shrimp goodness. Don’t use canned shrimp! I loved these things, but they’re full of fat. The nutrition info below doesn’t include the oil I cooked them in – so am sure it’s higher in calorie and fat than indicated. Don’t serve too many per person – they’re very filling.

What’s NOT: just that they must be made immediately before serving. The recipe said they can be reheated, but no, sealed up in foil they won’t be anywhere near as good (and crunchy) as fresh out of the frying pan. You don’t have to use an electric frypan – it’s just harder to maintain an even heat using a small frying pan over a flame.

printer-friendly PDF and MasterCook 14/15 file (click on link to open recipe)

Tweet

Talk about delicious! Comfort food for a cold winter’s night. A one-dish meal, and it’s relatively easy to make, too.

Another winner of a recipe from a Phillis Carey cooking class I took in January. Over the years I can’t count how many soups she’s taught me to make. This one is just full of flavor, and quite easy to make. You could substitute tortilla chips (packaged) if you didn’t want to make the strips. You start with frozen corn (but defrosted) and add in fresh tomatoes, chicken broth, oregano, and some bacon. Then it has onion, Serrano chiles, garlic, black beans and shredded chicken. Phillis suggested we use chicken from a Costco prepared rotisserie chicken – or some left over chicken or turkey. The soup is garnished with some crème fraiche (or Crema Agria if you have access to Mexican markets), cilantro, some crumbled Cotija cheese (or use cheddar) and lastly, it’s topped with some strips of tortillas you’ve fried in a bit of oil.

The soup will come together in a little over half an hour, providing you have all the ingredients ready, chicken chopped or shredded, onion chopped, etc. This is a complete meal in one pot (except for the fried tortilla strips). This soup IS a carb-centric one – with corn being the main ingredient after chicken broth, but it’s very filling. The tortilla strips add great texture and crunch, and the bacon adds a lot of flavor, as it always does!

What’s GOOD: all the flavors and textures make for a filling and toothsome bowl of soup. Loved this recipe – very satisfying. Am sure you’ll agree if you make it. I did like the home made tortilla strips – to me they’re worth buying the raw tortillas to make your own, but if you’re pressed for time, use packaged chips, broken up in your palms.

What’s NOT: nothing I can think of. A great recipe.

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

Tweet

Good, old-fashioned comforting soup. Easy to make and very satisfying. Serve with a biscuit or bread, or even saltines. Or with nothing else, since it has white beans and orzo in it for carbs.

Very nearly, I forgot to post this soup, and another one I’ll do in a few days. My friend Cherrie and I attended a cooking class a couple of months ago with Phillis Carey, and it was all about hearty soups. She made four, and I really liked two of them. I wrote on my class recipe “Exc,” which is my shorthand for excellent. In the hierarchy of note-taking, the highest rating is “Fab.” This one is special because of the Italian sausage, which is a real favorite of mine. In the recipe below, I’ve upped the sausage by a little bit because it adds so much flavor.

Making it is pretty easy as long as you’ve got all the ingredients – you cook the sausage, drain it, and use just a smidgen of the fat from the sausage to sauté the carrots, onion, celery and garlic. Then broth is added, canned tomatoes, cannellini beans (also canned) and rosemary. At the last, almost, you add in the orzo, which takes about 10 minutes to cook through (do NOT overcook at this point), and then you stir in the fresh spinach. Done. Serve with Parm grated on top. Altogether yummy.

What’s GOOD: comfort food, hearty, really great flavor from the sausage, a meal in one pot. Love those kinds of dinners! Also has various veggies in it, making it an easy way to get your family to eat their vegetables!

What’s NOT: nary a thing – this one’s an easy recipe and quick to make.

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

Tweet

Every so often I tell you – MAKE THIS. Here’s one of those occasions. It may not look all that special, but if you’ve read my blog long enough to trust my advice, then this is a dessert you need to make.

A few weeks ago I had a luncheon at my house. It was a fund-raising event for my P.E.O. chapter. I do some kind of an event every year and ladies in my P.E.O. sisterhood sign up and pay money to come to my house for whatever it is I’ve organized. The money is donated to the chapter (and money sent to Cottey College, in Iowa, to help support that small, but growing women’s college). Another sister had suggested that I borrow a DVD from her from her collection of The Great Courses. Renowned lecturers and professors present 45+ minute videos about a variety of things, from history, to science, to literature. Alice had recommended I look at the history segments and choose one that the group (10 of us) would watch.

So, I planned the lunch. I chose a video about the far-reaching effects of the Opium Wars of the 1600s (which affected world trade and still does today). I’d intended to choose something about American history, but found the Opium War one a bit more interesting. Nevertheless, I planned a menu revolving around old-American recipes. Months before my co-hostess and I divided up the food to prepare and invitations sent out, etc. Then, bless her heart, Linda, got sick and ended up in the hospital, so I hosted the event alone and doing all the food. I was a bit pooped-out by the end of the day, I’ll tell you! My friend is doing okay, is home and now taking new heart medication.

After watching the video, I did a sherry tasting. Staying true to the old-America theme, I knew that gentile women, back in the 1800s would only have partaken of sherry in the “drawing room” or the “parlour.” So I dug out some small liqueur glasses (at one time, years ago, I had some sherry glasses, but I don’t know what happened to them). I bought a bottle of sherry for this, but then thought – oh, I should look in my liquor closet and see what I have. Hmmm. Nothing less than 7 bottles of varying types of sherry. Two duplicates too! I do use sherry in cooking, and sometimes the recipe will call for very dry, or medium, or amontillado, or fino, etc. One of my PEO sisters helped me with the pouring while I worked a bit in the kitchen. Anyway, we progressed from very dry, to Bristol Cream and everything in between. Most of them had never tasted the different types, so they learned something. And definitely it needed to be Spanish sherry. During early America days, sherry was brought across the sea in huge casks on ships.

We sat down for the lunch, and I explained to everyone about the history of Country Captain, the main dish I had decided to make and one I posted about in 2010. It’s a chicken stew, of sorts, that originated in India, but came to the Americas via Savannah. It’s a mild curry dish loaded with bell peppers and onions, then topped with condiments (this time I used toasted coconut, toasted almonds and fresh bananas). It’s served over white rice.

Then I served this dessert. It originally appeared in a cookbook called Miss Leslie’s Complete Cookery (published in 1837) and Tori Avey, a food blogger, mostly of old time American recipe, knows from her copious research, that Mary Todd Lincoln bought the cookbook (some archive actually has the receipt of the purchase), and since it may have been her only cookbook (such books were few and far between back then) it’s assumed that either she (or the family cook) would have prepared this apple dish for the President for sure. I read Tori’s blog post to my group.

And everyone raved about it. Did I say several people asked if they could lick the plate? They did ask, but of course, no one did. I wanted to also. I’m so happy I still have a serving left which I’ll enjoy today sometime. WITH the little bit of nutmeg-almond-cream poured over it.

What’s GOOD: this dessert is just unctuous. I don’t use that word much, so you can take that to mean it’s something very special. It’s soft and warm and comforting and ever-so American like apple pie, but without all the fat from a pie crust. Do serve it with the nutmeg enhanced cream. It almost “made” the dish IMHO.

What’s NOT: it takes a bit of time to peel and slice 11 apples, but it’s SO worth the time in doing so. A real keeper of a recipe.

printer-friendly PDF and MasterCook 14/15 file (click on link to open recipe)

Tweet

Scrumptious, tart, lemony, textures, ah. Worth making – and it’s easy to boot.

In late January, my friend Ann, who lives in frigid Idaho, flew down to SoCal and I picked her up at the Palm Springs airport. We then stayed at a VRBO condo for a week in La Quinta. Sometimes January is iffy weather in the California desert (rainy) and we did get rain one day. It was fairly cold out there, but in the sunshine it was comfortable. The condo had a lovely kitchen with plenty of kitchen equipment, so we didn’t lack for anything (except sharp knives, alas – there were plenty of them, but they were as dull as cardboard – next time I’ll take some of my own good knives). I’d suggested to Ann that if I made one or two meals, maybe she’d come up with a meal she would prepare. We worked on all the cooking together, so it was a joint effort. She sent me several recipes and this is the one I preferred. Actually, this one is for scallops, but I don’t eat them – shrimp is preferable for me. So we made the same recipe, just with the shrimp instead. Pictured at left, Ann, at our VRBO condo, overlooking the rather brown golf course at PGA West.

This is really a salad only – there isn’t anything else hiding under all that watercress, but it was perfect for us. Real watercress is a bit hard to find these days – except the type you see above – it’s like baby cress – with the root ball attached. I don’t much like that type because it lacks that unique peppery flavor of full grown watercress. But if that’s all you can find, well, then, make do! The shrimp are cooked in nothing more than a speck of olive oil and seasoned with paprika and lemon zest. We had access to lemons out there in the desert – they were regular lemons, not Meyers (my preference), so depending on the type, you may want to adjust the sugar in the dressing.

The lemon vinaigrette is SO tasty – puckery, but sweet because you do add sugar, and it’s loaded with garlic too. The watercress was tossed with the lemon dressing, then we piled the shrimp on top and added parsley for garnish. The original recipe (with scallops) came from Cooking Light, in 2002.

What’s GOOD: it was so easy to make, and I just loved the lemon flavor. It was a zesty dressing (not hot, just vibrant) with the lemon. The shrimp were perfectly cooked through and we both slicked our plates clean. A definite keeper. Low cal and very low fat!

What’s NOT: nothing at all, except it might not be enough food for some people as a main entrée. Serve with bread and maybe a dessert? Just a thought.

printer-friendly PDF and MasterCook 14/15 file (click link to open recipe)

Tweet

Mexican Comfort Food. Easy. Gooey with melting cheese, tasty with pork carnitas inside, and a bit of sour cream to make it over the top.

Of all the recipes on this blog, you can count only a few that are truly Mexican. Like Mexican restaurant combination plate items. Why? Because I have such wonderful Mexican restaurants within a few miles of my house, and their food is pretty darned good. In years past (prior to 1976)  I used to make Mexican dishes at home, but that was because they were: (1) relatively inexpensive to make; (2) could feed a lot of people; and/or (3) I couldn’t get decent Mexican food where I lived.

But now, and for the last 40 years I’ve lived close to a Mexican population and restaurants abound. However, none of them make casseroles. They make tacos, burritos, tortas, taquitos, enchiladas (chicken, beef or cheese) and tostadas. Oh, and chile rellenos (one of my favorites). Years ago I used to make a chile relleno casserole that used canned Anaheim green chiles filled with a mixture of cream cheese and Jack cheese, dipped in egg, then flour and briefly fried, then baked in the oven for 20-25 minutes. I haven’t made those in years. They don’t resemble the rellenos I get at my favorite local Mexican place, Jalapeno’s, on First Street in Tustin, CA. I eat there about once a week, where I often run into friends who read my blog (hi, Mary). It’s a very popular place in our neighborhood, and they make awesome Mexican food.

So why did I decide to make a Mexican dish? Well, I read the blog, Homesick Texan. Lisa Fain grew up in Texas, but has lived in NYC for a long time, and she misses her home town Tex-Mex food, big time. She regularly returns to Texas to visit, and her blog reads like a travelogue – she goes from restaurant to restaurant to stock up on her Mexican or Tex-Mex favorites. She can’t get enough of it. She created this casserole as an easy way to have pork enchiladas, but without the fussiness of filling and rolling up the corn tortillas and lining them up like soldiers.

All the ingredients that go into enchiladas are there, but she merely layered them in a casserole and you cut it into servings, kind of like lasagna.

I’ve now made this twice and have changed a few minor things: (1) I layered it 4 layers deep (not 3) which makes for a bit more  depth, obviously. (2) I added just a bit more cheese; and (3) I dolloped some sour cream inside the layers, not just as a garnish for serving.

If you go to Lisa’s blog, you can read her recipe which has you cooking your own pork. I chose not to do that merely because I’d have so MUCH pork left over, since I’m just a one person household now. So, instead, I stopped at Jalapeno’s one night and I bought 3/4 pound of carnitas, and they gave me the pork, but also a foam container of raw onions and a huge pile of cilantro. All things to use in this casserole too. Yippee! I did make the sauce, which was relatively easy. You could, if you live where grocery stores sell fresh tomatillo salsa, use that. Lisa’s salsa also has poblano chiles in the mix, which gives a lovely depth of flavor. I understand that some Mexican markets sell canned poblano (pasilla) chiles – I haven’t found them, but if so I’d just add one of those to the tomatillo salsa.

This casserole is SO easy to put together once you line up all the ingredients: the grated cheese, the shredded pork, minced onion, the salsa verde (see right), sour cream, and you merely need to soften the corn tortillas in a frying pan in a tiny, tiny bit of oil and put them in a casserole dish. Then you layer, and layer, and layer. Ending up with tortillas, salsa and heaps of cheese on top. Into a 350° oven it goes, and 30 minutes later you have dinner. Garnish with more cilantro and sour cream.

If I made this for a group, I’d definitely buy a pork shoulder roast and make the pork carnitas myself. Pork shoulder is one of the cheaper cuts of meat you can buy these days, and it’s pretty easy to do the long, slow cooking to get it to peak tenderness. Shred it up, and just get all the ingredients together and the casserole all comes together in a jiffy. I’d serve this with a green salad with not too many vegetables (tomatoes, celery, green onions) and a vinaigrette of some kind. Have chips and salsa for an appetizer, and make Tres Leches cake for dessert. Done. Easy.

What’s GOOD: everything about this casserole is good – the pork, the cheese (yum), the tomatillo-poblano salsa, and all the cilantro, sour cream. Oh goodness, it’s just fabulous. Will definitely be making this again.

What’s NOT: making the pork from scratch takes a few hours; the salsa takes a bit of prep, but it will keep for a few days. Assembling the casserole is cinchy easy. Not much downside since I used pork carnitas from my local Mexican eatery.

printer-friendly PDF and MasterCook 14/15 file (click link to open recipe)

Tweet

Oh, what a lovely slice of deliciousness. Coconut flavor in the bread and on the top, and lemon caramel drizzled over the top. This one’s really, really good!

One of my book clubs came to my house awhile back, and not only did I review a book (The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry: A Novel by Rachel Joyce), but I also needed to prepare some mid-morning food for everyone who came. We had a really interesting discussion about this book. It’s one of my favorite books I’ve read in the last couple of years and I think this book “experience” was enhanced by a group discussion.

I made coffee, had fresh fruit, some Biscoff cookies, this bread, and also some chocolate/banana small cake bites too. I’ll write up the cake recipe too – soon. When everyone left, I packaged up everything and put it in a big ziploc bag in the freezer for my Scrabble group that came to my house a couple of weeks later. But I’ll tell you – I had a hard time staying out of that bag during the ensuing weeks because I wanted some of this bread.

The recipe – I read about it on Orangette, but it comes from a book titled Lemons by Alison Roman (not available at amazon). I’ll need to frequent some used book stores to see if I can find it. You can buy it from the publisher for $14, (which seems pricey for a 48 page cookbook), so I’d like to find a used copy if I can do so. I have a couple of lemon cookbooks, but if this recipe is any representation of what’s contained in that cookbook, then I need to own it!

The recipe is just slightly different than most tea bread recipes, in that it uses coconut oil (melted). And it does have a coconut topping that’s baked along with the bread. Then you make a lemon juice mixture to go on top. Here’s where my cooking went off the track (in a good way). I set the lemon juice and sugar in a small saucepan on the stove, then walked 10 feet away and began working on something here at my computer. I lost track of time, and the aroma of lemon juice/sugar didn’t seem to alert me that I needed to get back to it. When I finally smelled it, I dashed over to the stove and discovered that the mixture had turned to a light brown caramel. I didn’t want to make another batch, so I just used it anyway – I used a spoon to drizzle the lemon-caramel over the top of the finished bread. It was a delightful change/mistake that I’ll probably do the next time I make it, so I’ve included it in my recipe below. It gave it a lovely crunch, in addition to the unsweetened coconut flakes that were also slightly crunchy.

What’s GOOD: the coconut and lemon flavors are prominent (which I liked). There isn’t much of anything made with lemon that I don’t like, but this tea cake is particularly good, and I want to bake it again, because I didn’t have enough of it the first time around.

What’s NOT: not a single thing. Worth making for sure.

printer-friendly PDF and MasterCook 14/15 file (click on link to open recipe)

Tweet

Okay, listen up my friends. If you’ve learned to trust me when I tell you – these cookies are beyond wonderful. Not to be confused with the previous recipe I gave you  for “safari anzac cookies” (the one provided by the African safari camp chef and posted here in November). These are mostly ordinary cookie ingredients, but an altogether different method and a tweak or two.

When I made the last iteration of these cookies (I’ve now made 3) I was less than pleased, although all my friends raved about them, and I agreed they were “good” but they weren’t perfect. I suppose if I were the more professional kind of blogger I wouldn’t have even posted the last recipe – since I wasn’t satisfied with them. But I did because everybody loved them, yet I wasn’t sure what in the world I could do with them to make them better or “right” in my book.

So, I do what I tend to do best – I researched. I went on the web and looked up things about the CHEMISTRY of cookie baking. The myriad of sites I went to had varying opinions about why one ingredient resulted in this type, or that method made the cookies a different way. But before I even did that, I went to my cookie recipe file (in my MasterCook program) and looked at each and every recipe I have in there (a couple hundred) and examined my photos, and analyzed the ingredients. And as I got down to the R’s in my list I came across my old recipe for Ranger Cookies. They’re a crispy cookie that contains oatmeal and corn flakes and other various things. But I was really looking more at the cookie dough ingredients than anything else – not the add-ins. And I remembered how good those cookies are. Don’t know why I don’t make them more often because I really like them.

Then I went on the web and researched. What I learned was this:

(1) using all butter makes for a very crispy cookie that may spread;

(2) adding shortening will help cookies to be more firm in height (less spreading) because shortening melts at a higher temp;

(3) eggs add tenderness (well, of course) and they’re a binder as well, something to hold the batter together;

(4) molasses makes cookies darker, sweeter, and since it’s a liquid, cookies tend to spread some because of it which causes quicker browning;

(5) melting the butter/shortening and molasses before baking also encourages spreading, creating a thin, flat cookie; and then

(6) cake flour tends to give cookies a more cake-like texture – duh, that’s why it’s called cake flour!

As am aside, I don’t use Crisco anymore because it’s hydrogenated (medical researchers tell us that’s not such a good thing to eat) so I seek out Spectrum brand non-hydrogenated shortening. It’s carried at some of my local grocery stores, but not all – it’s in a blue and white round plastic tub next to the Crisco. If they carry it. If you can’t find a non-hydrogenated shortening, you can use margarine, but I don’t know how it would work because it’s basically an oil and when it gets warm it melts. The whole idea behind the shortening is that it doesn’t melt easily – except at high temp, higher than the melting (flash) point of butter.

SO, keeping all those do’s and don’t’s in mind, I swapped out some of the butter and added the non-hydrogenated shortening. There were no eggs, but liquid was needed, so I added a little swig of milk. I took out the molasses altogether and used a combo of white and brown sugar. I used all-purpose flour and left the leaveners the same. When I started out making these, I had no idea whether they would turn out – I took one thing from one recipe, another from a different recipe, added a couple of things and removed some. And I changed the method of mixing too. I’m not usually as adventuresome about creating cookies because there truly IS a chemistry to baking, but perhaps not as critical as in baking a cake with specific ratios needed.

Here’s what I did: first I creamed the softened butter and shortening together and mixed it until there weren’t any streaks of shortening. Then I added the sugars and vanilla. Meanwhile, I’d made a mixture of the flour (all-purpose) and baking powder, soda and salt. Into the cookie batter I added oatmeal and unsweetened coconut and mixed that well enough, then I added in the flour and milk until the batter was pulling together, then I added the seeds (sesame, flax and pumpkin). It looked good. The batter tasted right too. I baked just one sheet of them and let them rest a few minutes after baking to see if they were okay. More than okay!

I’ve given away most of these cookies already and can’t wait to make another batch. These cookies aren’t exactly like the ones we had on safari (those were much thicker and almost jaw-breakers to bite through) but I’m so happy with the results of my experimentation that I don’t want to try yet again. I’d thought about making yet another (4th) iteration with adding more cookie part and less add-ins, but have concluded these cookies are just perfect. I mean it. They are.

What’s GOOD: these are just magnificent cookies, if I do say so myself. Love the seeds. Love the texture and the crispness. Love everything about them. Try them and you’ll see what I mean.

What’s NOT: absolutely nothing. These are a winner!

printer-friendly PDF and MasterCook 14/15 file (click link to open recipe)

Tweet

Well, this one isn’t healthy, what with the cream in the sauce, but if you only have 1-2 tablespoons of it, it can’t be too bad. A tender (and lean) pork tenderloin that’s brined in spiced-up buttermilk is browned in a pan then oven baked. THEN, you make the insanely wonderful sauce with cilantro, jalapeno, lime juice, goat cheese, butter, and more than a tetch of heavy cream.

Oh my goodness, is this recipe wonderful. I almost forgot to post it. It came from that great Diva class I attended in December, with Diane Phillips and and Phillis Carey (this is Phillis’ recipe). The pork is merely a vehicle for the sauce – I’m telling you – you’ll want to lick the plate it’s so good.

The brine in this is composed of sugar, ancho chili powder, regular chili powder, smoked paprika, cayenne, cinnamon and buttermilk. Easy, providing you have all the ingredients. The thick-sliced bacon is wrapped around the pork once it’s brined for 24 hours and tied onto it. The fat from the bacon bastes the pork while it’s roasting in the oven. The pork is browned and then it’s roasted in the oven for about 20 minutes.

It helps if you’ve made the cilantro pesto ahead of time – it’s not hard to make at all. It’s a typical pesto (oil, pine nuts, garlic), but instead of basil, it uses cilantro. The sauce is a combination of cream and butter, with some crumbled goat cheese (you can see it in the photo at top). The pesto is stirred into the sauce just before you’re ready to serve it – so it doesn’t actually cook – it’s just heated up. It’s SO full of flavor.

The pork needs to rest for about 6-8 minutes after it comes out of the oven (to help pull back the good juices, so you don’t lose them as you slice), then you slice the tenderloins about 1/2 inch thick. The bacon, which has crisped up during the roasting, is chopped up and sprinkled on top once you’ve drizzled the sauce on top. Oh my. Fabulous.

What’s GOOD: there is not anything about this recipe that ISN’T good. I’m telling you, you need to make this. Would make a fantastic company meal, for sure. Not hard to make – don’t be misled by all the ingredients below. It’s not all that hard to do. You’ll be emailing me afterwards, telling me how much you loved this.

What’s NOT: only that it’s not all that healthy,  unfortunately. I’d serve it with rice so you can sop up every tiny bit of the sauce. It’s that good.

printer-friendly PDF and MasterCook 14/15 file (click link to open recipe)

Tweet