Every Christmas season I make this bread. I’ve posted it more than once. I just took two loaves out of the oven and wondered if some of you hadn’t ever read my original post for this quick Bishop’s Bread? I posted it in December, 2007, the first December I’d been writing this blog. It’s such a  favorite. And as I was looking it up today I realized that I have more comments about this bread than I have about any other recipe on this blog. One thing you need to know is this is NOT fruitcake. It has none of the citron stuff in it. It may look like fruitcake, but it’s not . . . Several people wrote me saying how thrilled they were to find the recipe as they’d lost it somehow. There are some other varieties of the bread. My original recipe (above) contains chocolate chips (Ghiradelli dark), Maraschino cherries (halved) and lots of walnuts. Some versions contain chopped dates. I don’t love dates in a bread so have never included it. Some people use dried cherries (or cranberries); others prefer the glazed cherries that are ubiquitous in Christmas baking. Some include walnuts and pecans.

One year I made Golden Bishop’s Bread. That was 2011. It’s more of a rich cake/bread (butter, spices, brandy), and it’s good too.

When I was in junior high school, the school cafeteria made white cake cupcakes nearly every day and they made a Maraschino cherry frosting with some chopped cherries in it and some of the juice in the frosting, so it made the frosting extra pink. I think (actually I’m sure) that’s when I fell in love with Maraschino cherries. I don’t eat them at any other time of the year. Start your holiday baking, my friends!

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You know how it is when you read a recipe saying it’s “the BEST” around? There are too many of them, so how do you decide?

Fall has “arriven” here in SoCal. So happy to have cooler days. Lighting my fireplace in the evenings, even wearing a sweater part of the time. I was craving chili, and couldn’t decide whether I should just defrost a package of some I made last spring, or to try something new. When I looked through the America’s Test Kitchen’s recipe for chili, claiming it’s the “best,” I thought why not try it. But then, I didn’t have all the ingredients (chuck roast for one). I didn’t have fresh jalapeno peppers, either. Nor did I have beer on hand (I don’t drink it). I had a handyman working here in my house so decided I’d make do with what I did have (ground beef and ground pork) and canned chiles, and I used beef broth instead of beer. So the bottom line to this recipe is that I changed it a lot, but I also liked it a lot.

Ancho chiles are my new favorite thing in chili – they add so much complex flavor. The chiles I had weren’t hard-crisp-dried, but still somewhat soft, so it took a bit of doing to get them chopped up. The food processor didn’t do a very good job of it, so I plopped them out on my cutting board and used a big chef’s knife to chop them up into much smaller pieces. Back into the food processor, and whizzed them for a long time – eventually I got tiny pieces and a lot of coarse chile dust. Perfect.

First I sauteed some chopped onion, then added celery (not in the original recipe) just because it adds some more flavor and fiber, then garlic. I removed all that to a bowl while I browned the ground beef (as it happened I’d purchased some wagyu ground beef at Costco) and ground pork. Then I added the ancho chiles, some chili powder, cornmeal (gives it a little texture and thickening), dried oregano, ground cumin AND some cocoa powder. Say what? Maybe this is a take on Mexican mole, which uses chocolate. It’s not like you can taste the chocolate (there were only two teaspoons). Also an unusual item, molasses. Canned black beans (and you can add more – I used just one can) and canned tomatoes were added too, then canned green chiles and beef broth. Here’s where  you could add the lager if you had it (instead of broth).

The onions went back in and I set it to simmer for about an hour. Done. It needed salt and toppings to finish. Usually I prefer to let chili sit overnight in the frig (helps it develop better flavor, as in a lot of dishes like soups and stews), but I had some for my lunch yesterday, with shredded cheese (Mexican cheese blend) and some cilantro. You could add lots of other toppings: freshly grated raw onion, green onions, crushed Fritos, tortilla chips, fresh chopped tomatoes and even some minced Jalapeno peppers. So even though it hadn’t melded overnight, I thought the flavor was wonderful!

What’s GOOD: you can make this in an hour or so. It probably could be made in the Instant Pot in a lot less time too, though you’d need to scale down the recipe as I think it would make it too full. I liked it a LOT. Very nice, deep, complex flavors. Notice how dark the color is – a lot from the ancho chiles, but also the cocoa. This recipe is a keeper. Certainly I didn’t stick to the America’s Test Kitchen recipe very well, but I liked my riff.

What’s NOT: only that it does take at least 90 minutes to make, maybe a bit longer. It makes a big batch, and even more if you added another can of beans. I try to limit carbs, so used just one can. Great for freezing.

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Have you ever had banana cookies? I don’t think I had. They’re good.

This evening I’m leading a committee meeting and wanted to serve something, a little something, while we work. I told the hostess I’d bring cookies. But maybe not chocolate (my usual go-to anything) since it might keep some people awake. This cookie was just the thing – a cross between banana bread and a cookie. Having made them and now eaten several of them, they really are just banana bread made into a cookie.

The original recipe called for quite a bit more sugar, but commenters said to reduce the sugar by about half. I didn’t quite do that, but close. And if I make them again, I’d likely reduce the 2/3 cup to a little over 1/2 cup. The mixture of spices in this (cinnamon, mace [or nutmeg] and ground cloves) is just right. Not too much, not too little. Several commenters said they removed most of the spices because they knew their children wouldn’t like the taste (really?), but I think the spices are great.

Do note the brief time the mashed bananas need to just sit with the baking soda. That’s not an instruction you see very often. It helps the rising factor. The batter may appear curdled, but as with banana bread, it doesn’t make a jot of difference once baked. I have good baking sheets (my new favorite is the Williams-Sonoma gold ones) that don’t require parchment. These cookies didn’t stick at all. You can put more than the usual amount of cookies on the sheet as they don’t spread. Where they plop, they stay. I used a cookie scoop so they were all a uniform amount.

What’s GOOD: love the banana flavor and texture. Just like banana bread, but in cookie form. Definitely I’d make these again if I had over-ripe bananas in my kitchen.

What’s NOT; nothing really. These are good. Not crisp – they’re soft and tender. Just like banana bread.

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Tummy-warming soup with a Mexican bent – made with poblano chiles, canned green chiles and a bunch of vegetables. Plus chicken, of course.

First, a little update about me. My jury duty is finally over with – it lasted four weeks. Thank goodness I’m done with it. I wasn’t ever called to be a deliberating juror (I was an alternate), but when the jurors did meet they convicted the defendant on all five counts, including an enhancement charge that she had intended to cause bodily harm. I wrote a letter to the prosecutor (thanking her), one to the police detective who was assigned to the case (thanking him for his 14 months of working on the case), another to the police chief (telling him how much I admired the detective for his work, but also for his compassion to the victim), and lastly I mailed a Halloween card to the victim herself telling her how brave she was to testify (age 11). The defendant will be put away for a long time.

Now let’s talk about soup. When the weather begins to turn cooler I’m all in for making soups. This one started out as a slow cooker soup, but since I no longer have a large slow cooker (only the instant pot one – and it would have been too small for this batch) I changed the recipe all around, added more vegetables into it and made it on the stovetop. If you have leftover chicken (or in my case it was some rotisserie chicken) this is a perfect soup to use it up.

This is a quick and easy soup if you have all the ingredients. The original recipe called for rice (you can add it if you’d like), but I added some sweet potato and a bit of butternut squash. Actually, for the record, I bought a box of fresh, chopped up veggies at Trader Joe’s, a kind of fall medley, so I’m estimating how much sweet potato and squash it added. Soups like this aren’t exact – add more of anything that suits you and your family.

There are bunches of recipes on the ‘net lately, all made in a crockpot, using a brick of cream cheese. That adds a lot of luscious creaminess to the soup as it melts slowly. I almost always have an 8-ounce brick of cream cheese in my refrigerator. You don’t have to decorate the servings with grated cheese or cilantro, but those two things add a nice touch to the soup. Finishes it off.

What’s GOOD: loved this soup. It makes a big batch, so I have ample to freeze in Ziploc quart bags. Loved the creaminess of it, and the various vegetables added, the sweet potato and butternut squash. The various chiles add a lovely umami flavor to the soup, I think. Altogether delicious.

What’s NOT: nothing really. I suppose you could adapt this to an instant pot (make half the recipe) and then add the cream cheese at the end and let it simmer (not pressure cook) to blend slowly into the soup itself. Made on the stovetop, with all the chopping, etc. it probably takes an hour to make the soup.

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We used to think that coconut milk was bad for us – because of the saturated fat it contained. But now the experts think that type of saturated fat isn’t the same as from animal fat. Good thing, since this soup is so delicious and contains not one, but two cans of coconut milk.

So, first, just to catch you up. I’ve been on jury duty for about 3 weeks (as I write this). And the trial isn’t over yet. Maybe I’ll talk about it eventually. It’s absolutely gruesome. It’s not a murder trial but about child abuse. Erroneously, I thought that once you got to be my age, you didn’t have to serve on jury duty anymore. Not so in my county. There were 60 of us assigned to a courtroom and over the course of 1 1/2 days they finally got a jury selected, me included as Alternate #3. Lots of potential jurors didn’t want to be a juror for this trial. The judge warned us it was going to assault our senses when we’d see photos. Some people likely lied about their inability to view child abuse. Some jurors were released; others weren’t. When I was called to the jury box (I was potential juror #55) and questioned, I knew all the arguments the judge had heard. I’d resigned myself that this must be what God had in mind, that I needed to serve. So when the judge asked me if I could be fair and impartial, I said yes. Did I want to be there? Absolutely not. But I wouldn’t lie. That’s not in my nature anyway.

Consequently, my life has kind of been on hold. And let me tell you, coming home in the evenings I was just a “basket case” of sadness (for the children involved), anger (at the defendant and that the abuse had gone on for so long, undetected). I have cried in the courtroom several times; so did some of the other jurors. The judge had forewarned us that he expected some of us to shed tears. At home, I found myself unable to concentrate. Unable to do normal tasks. Most evenings I watch mindless TV just to reset my brain. Each weekend I went through the motions of doing tasks I knew I needed to do (grocery shopping and errands), but my heart wasn’t in it. By Sundays I’ve been mostly back to normal. And then it starts all over on Monday mornings.

Cooking has not played center stage for me in these past weeks, except for making a couple of soups that I could take to court (and reheat in the microwave in the large jury pool room on the lunch hour). One was fabulous (this one) the other one not so much (won’t be posting it).

The Soup: the original recipe came from the internet, but I altered it some, making it my own. It had rice; I eliminated the rice – but you can add it if you’d like to. Surely you know me by now, I like to eliminate carbs when possible. This has sweet potato in it, but that veg is a resistant starch that gets mostly eliminated through your gut and intestines and not absorbed as a carbohydrate. I added zucchini (just because I love zucchini) and I added bok choy too. It called for spinach, but I added a lot more.

The meatballs were very easy to make – with ground chicken, shallots, fresh ginger, a bit of soy sauce. They were lightly browned on a couple of sides in EVOO, then removed. Then you begin assembling the soup part – more shallot, some onion, garlic, curry paste, curry powder, chicken broth, bok choy, zucchini and the sweet potatoes. Once the veggies are tender add in the coconut milk and spinach. The meatballs are added back in and simmered for a few minutes. Done.

What’s GOOD: loved the umami flavors in this – probably the coconut milk, the ginger, garlic, even the sweet potato! SO flavorful. I’m so glad I have many more portions of this soup to enjoy in the next week or so. Whether it’s taking it to the jury room, or having here at home once this trial is over. Altogether wonderful soup. If you’re pressed for time, don’t make the meatballs, just add all the flavors into the soup and you’ll be happy with the results.

What’s NOT: maybe the sticky meatball-making, but that’s about it. It’s a very simple soup to make.

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Another favorite of my friend Linda. This is an adult fruit salad.

Do you still have some good, summer fruit available? Maybe some strawberries, although they’re on the back end of summer fruits. Bananas, green grapes, cantaloupe, watermelon. Blueberries add a nice color to the salad. I might add some peaches or nectarines, if they were available. Even kiwi? Linda added some mandarin oranges to her salad.

Likely you have a bottle of Grand Marnier in the back of your liquor cabinet too? And you need fresh lemon juice also – and mint.

If you buy a watermelon, consider cutting it in half and making a bowl from the rind, you know, the kind where you cut the zigzag edge?

When you make this, combine the sugar, lemon juice and Grand Marnier in a big bowl or a big plastic bag, then add the fruit. Stir it around GENTLY so all of the fruit has had a kiss by that Grand Marnier. Refrigerate it for a few hours to marinate the fruits. Serve with sprigs of mint. Lovely.

What’s GOOD: the subtle Grand Marnier flavor, for sure, and just the joy of a lovely fresh fruit salad.

What’s NOT: not a thing.

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A post from Karen: While a Honey Chipotle Chicken I can’t take credit for (thank you “Marinated” for making my life easy! –[a farmer’s market near where Karen lives]) was roasting in the oven I considered what sides I was going to serve with it. I wanted a salad or slaw to complement it and was reminded of El Torito Restaurant’s dressing with cilantro and pepitas. Alas, I was out of pepitas, but I did have pistachios on hand. Why not?! I continued rummaging through pantry and refrigerator for what would complete my dressing. I often pickle or freeze what I can’t use right away, and in this case I had some onion and red jalapeno pickles on hand. I also had some Yuzu hot sauce which would add a nice citrus component.

What’s good: – this came together very easily. I think the pickled elements of the onion and jalepeno really lended a wonderful layer of flavor to the dressing and negated the need for added salt or pepper. It was also a great use of the vinegar my onions were pickling in. The pistachio added a nice little crunch. I didn’t toast them, and would be curious to hear if you try it that way. The feta was a nice add as well, simply sprinkled on the top instead of incorporated in. I haven’t tried cotija cheese, but seems like it would work well, so let me know if you try that too!

What wasn’t – well, if you are trying to watch your calories, you may not like that I used heavy cream and mayonnaise. I did use light mayo for the second batch and that worked fine.
Bottom line – Hubby declared it the “best ever” slaw he’s ever tasted. It’s gotten rave reviews from everyone who has tried it so far and I find myself craving it now! Hope you enjoy it too!

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Easy, easy dry rub, air dried/marinated in the frig, then grilled.

Always, I’m on the lookout for a new way to do pork tenderloin. I was hosting a big family birthday party recently. Karen brought salmon, and her pistachio cole slaw, Karen’s mom brought a veggie platter, Sara brought a blueberry lemon layer cake and I filled in the rest with this pork and a big huge salad platter (see below).

This recipe for the pork came out of Southern Living a few months ago. Once you prepare the dry rub (brown sugar, smoked paprika, onion powder, garlic powder, dry mustard) you plop the tenderloins into a Ziploc bag with the rub. Toss it around a bit, let it sit for a few minutes, toss again, then the tenderloins are placed on a rack on a sheetpan (I used the smaller one) and they marinate in the refrigerator (yes, open, no covering) for 8-12 hours. What happens in that time is the outside of the pork hardens a bit and absorbs all of the dry rub.

When my family comes I almost always assign the grilling duty to my son Powell, or Sara’s husband John. I think they both worked at it – cooking the salmon and grilling the pork. The pork was grilled for 8-10 minutes I’m guessing (I wasn’t at the grill so don’t have an exact number), turning them occasionally, until the internal temperature reaches 140°F. If you remove the pork then, let it sit a few minutes and it rises to 145°F, which is what you want it to be. As you can see, the two guys cooked it perfectly.

I wish I’d made some kind of salsa or condiment to go with it – like balsamic onion marmalade, green tomatillo salsa, or pineapple salsa, strawberry salsa, tomato jam, parsley sauce, chimichurri perhaps, or mango chutney. It was fine plain, and we had plenty of food, but knowing my family, it would have been nice if I’d had something to go with it. Just sayin’.

There’s the salad platter I served with it. I cut Romaine in quarters (the ones from Trader Joe’s are smaller and manageable). There are nine wedges of Romaine in the center. Then green beans that I dressed with some of the vinaigrette at the last minute, halved hard boiled eggs, cherry tomatoes and some pomegranate seeds sprinkled over it all. I drizzled everything (except the eggs) with my old-favorite, creamy garlic blue cheese vinaigrette (that I made with Gorgonzola this time). There was nothing left on the platter except a few green beans.

What’s GOOD: oh, how easy this was – made the pork rub in the morning, marinated it for 5 minutes, then it chilled in the frig all day. Easy to grill – just don’t let it go too long, remove it at 140°F. Delicious. The smoky flavor comes from the smoked paprika, which was really nice, I thought. It wasn’t overly sweet at all, though on the pieces you ate with the outside edge, you could taste the brown sugar just a bit. Very good. I’d make it again – just with a salsa or sauce with it. The salad platter was SO easy too – I cooked the green beans the day before and made the dressing. The hard boiled eggs were done in my Instant Pot that morning and chilled. It took about 5 minutes to cut the Romaine wedges, dress everything and arrange on the platter. So easy and a pretty presentation to boot!

What’s NOT: hmm. Nothing that I can think of, other than you need to start this in the morning before grilling in the evening.

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A fabulous recipe from my friend Linda. It’s a favorite of hers.

My friend Linda is a great cook. My guess is she cooks more than I do, and she’s also a single person. She had told me about this recipe some time back and she recently made it again for guests and took a photo and sent me the recipe, asking if I’d like to post it on the blog. I said yes, sure would! Originally the recipe came from Ina Garten, but as Linda has made it over and over, she’s adapted it some. For one thing, Linda felt there was too much shrimp in it (Ina called for 2 pounds). And she altered the amount of veggies in it too.

There are a four steps to this recipe: (1) cook the orzo; (2) make the dressing; (3) roast the shrimp; (4) combine the orzo, the dressing, the shrimp and add dill, parsley, cucumber, red onion and feta cheese. The dish is served at room temperature. You can make it a day ahead and bring it out to warm a bit before serving. Just taste it for salt and pepper before serving. Linda says everyone who has had this loves it.

What’s GOOD: the nice big shrimp and orzo combination. The lemon juice-based dressing adds a nice acidity to the dish. Great for hot weather.

What’s NOT: nothing that Linda mentioned.

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OMGoodness. Was this ever beyond delicious.

A couple of weeks ago I wrote up a post about Vivian Howard’s book, This Will Make It Taste Good. And about my friend Cherrie and I getting together to cook for a day and making three of the flavor enhancers Vivian shares in the book. This post is about the one called Red Weapons.

To make this chicken and grits, you need to make the Red Weapons. They’re not hard – not in the least. But it is a separate process, and they need to be made a day ahead, at least. The red weapons mixture Vivian says will keep in the frig for 3 months. It’s a pickled kind of mixture but also contains EVOO.

What’s in it? First you cut up 2 pounds of tomatoes, put them in a bowl. Glass one if you have it. Then in a big saucepan you combine green onions, jalapenos, fresh ginger, garlic, cumin, mustard seeds, cayenne, turmeric, brown sugar, EVOO, salt, unseasoned rice wine vinegar and white wine vinegar. The mixture is heated to a boil then it’s poured over the bowl of tomatoes. It’s set aside to sit, for many hours, or even overnight. This allows all those flavors to mingle – once you refrigerate this it will stop the flavor-mingling. Because of all the vinegar it contains, it IS a pickling liquid, but tempered by the EVOO. While you heat it up and then pour all that hot liquid over the tomatoes, it semi-cooks the mixture. The tomatoes stay relatively intact.

The recipe below makes twice this amount, pictured. At right is a quart of it (half). The EVOO is sitting there on top and the red weapons and the pickling liquid below that (called for separately in most of the recipes that accompanied the red weapons recipe in the cookbook). If you make this, store it in a wide mouthed glass container (do NOT use plastic). Or you can divide the mixture into several smaller containers – just use wide mouthed ones as the congealed EVOO on top makes it hard to get to the goodies underneath.

WARNING: turmeric stains everything it touches. There’s only 1 1/2 teaspoons in the entire batch, but it gets on everything –  your counter, your clean-up sponge, and if you mop any of it up with a paper towel, you’ll sure know there’s turmeric in it. But you can’t taste the turmeric at all. Funny how that is. The tomatoes and jalapenos are the primary flavors here. Ideally the mixture is left out at room temp overnight, then it’s refrigerated.

In the cookbook, Vivian suggests you can use the red weapons for these things: on any kind of cooked egg, added to braising liquid (stews, soups), mixed into cooked rice or beans, as a sauce or marinade for grains, legumes or pasta salads, added to reheated chicken or pork, a marinade for ceviche or a dressing for crudos, chopped up with fresh herbs as a salsa, blended with mayo for a dipping sauce and stirred into potato, chicken, shrimp or tuna salad. Recipes in the cookbook include: pickled shrimp, a breakfast casserole with sausage, bread and cheese, in deviled eggs, as a condiment for fish, beef or lamb tartare, added to fried chicken, Vivian’s sausage sauce (Sunday sauce) served over broccoli, not pasta, with greens on mozzarella toast, plus several vinaigrettes.

Now, we can get on to the Chicken and Grits recipe. First, I made a huge mess trying to extract the cup of red weapons (the stuff underneath).  I removed about half of the EVOO covering it, then dug deep into the glass container to get to the goodies. You need a cup of red weapons and 1/2 cup of the pickling liquid.

I didn’t have skin-on chicken thighs, so I used boneless, skinless ones. They were lightly browned in a skillet – the big, huge 12-inch Lodge cast iron one. They were removed, then you add a chopped up leek to the fat in the pan. As it began to soften I mushed them a bit so they’d separate into rings. Then garlic is added, then the grits, the red weapons, the red weapons liquid, milk and water. The recipe suggested adding more salt, but I didn’t think it was needed. The picture here at right is of the thighs nestled into the grits (which is very liquid at this point).

If you’re using skin-on thighs, they’re nestled into the mixture and the pan goes into a 375°F oven. With skinless thighs, I baked the grits for 20 minutes, then nestled the thighs into the grits mixture to finish cooking them. The total bake time is 40 minutes and you let the pan cool for 5 minutes before serving.

Vivian suggested serving the grits with another one of her flavor bombs, a mixture called herbdacious. I haven’t posted that recipe yet. I had guests the night I made this chicken, and we did use some of the herbdacious on the top and I agree, it made it even better.

What’s GOOD: I’ll say it again – OMGoodness. So good. There is very little fat in this (except for the chicken skin if you use it plus a tablespoon of EVOO used to brown the chicken). There’s no butter, no cream. The red weapons provide a wonderful flavor to everything – chicken and the grits. I will be making this again and again – providing I have some red weapons in my refrigerator.

What’s NOT: well, only that you need to plan ahead at least a day to make the Red Weapons first, then the chicken and grits later.

RED WEAPONS: printer-friendly PDF and MasterCook file (click link to open)

CHICKEN: printer-friendly PDF and MasterCook file (click link to open)

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