Do you like mahi mahi?  If you can find it, this is a really delicious way to fix it. Lemon pieces (that’s what’s on top there, the scorched part that you don’t eat) give good flavor and the really good feta and yogurt mixture that’s on top. Like a tartar sauce except it’s got mint, dill and lemon zest and juice in it.

I do like mahi, and yet I don’t see it everywhere. More often on restaurant menus than in the fish market. I don’t much like to buy frozen fish – I’m sure it’s available frozen in the regular supermarkets, but I generally don’t buy supermarket fish. Period. It could be that mahi is only available frozen anyway (you know the label: previously frozen). I don’t know.

In any case, this recipe, the last fish recipe from the class with Phillis Carey, which is just loaded with flavor, is easy to make. You need fresh lemons, Greek full-fat yogurt, sheep’s milk Feta, fresh mint and fresh dill.

This fish is cooked in a broiler method, but you put the rack way, way low in your oven. The fish cooks without you having to turn it over mid-way through. While the broiler heats up, mix up the yogurt stuff (Greek yogurt, sheep’s milk Feta, mint, dill, lemon zest and juice). That’s spread all over the mahi fillets (do spread it all the way to the edges), then you top it with the drizzle of olive oil. Then the thinly sliced lemon halves (seeds removed) are gently nestled into the yogurt. Try to make it flat – any unevenness will scorch the lemon unevenly (obviously). It’s also good to have mahi mahi pieces that are about the same thickness – thinner pieces will cook a lot faster.

Serve the fish with the scorched lemon – but most people will probably set it aside. It can be eaten if you want to. But do make this. It’s good! Serve with rice. If you want, make some extra sauce and serve it to dollop on top of the rice for extra flavor. It’s yogurt, remember, not sour cream.

What’s GOOD: it’s EASY for sure. But you do need to have the ingredients on hand – I never have fresh dill (can’t seem to grow it now matter what I do). I always have sheep’s milk Feta because I use it in salads. And lemons, always. Mint from my garden. Yep. Easy. Just find the mahi and buy dill. The flavor is great – love the creamy sauce and the tart thing going on with it.
What’s NOT: just the finding of mahi mahi, maybe. Easy dinner!

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Never let it be said that I passed up trying yet another chocolate chip cookie recipe. And yes, this one is slightly different than most – it uses melted butter in the batter.

There still isn’t all that much cooking going on around my kitchen. This journey of grief just gets in my way. It’s a journey I have to take, though, and I have to learn new routines, learn how to avoid my tough times (evenings mostly – after dark, and weekends in general). I want to find joy in my days, and I do sometimes. I’m so grateful for my friends, who have been very attentive to me, inviting me to go to lunch, to come to their homes for dinner. They’ve all been so understanding. Yesterday I was with some couple friends and I was able to get through the evening without crying even though I did talk about Dave some. We toasted a glass of wine to him. I took a bottle of Cabernet – a really good bottle and shared it with these dear friends. I need to do that as the wine cellar has a LOT of wine in it.

The wine cellar in this house has its own A/C system. A small, little A/C that just cools the 8×10 room that houses the underground cellared wine collection. Dave was the wine connoisseur in our relationship. I enjoyed wine, and liked investigating the nuances of different varietals, and sniffing the glass to pull out the “nose.” But in the last few years I’ve just about stopped drinking wine. No particular reason – I never drank more than about one glass anyway. Dave drank mostly Zinfandel (his favorite), which is a wine that I don’t like much – it’s too zingy, too tart and acidic for me. Only if it was a soft Zin would I share a bottle with him. And when we went out to dinner I’d share wine with him.

In the last couple of months, when I’ve had houseguests or dinner guests I’ve gone down into the cellar to bring out a bottle or two of wine to share. But days go by and I don’t even think about wine. Last month we had a really bad heat wave. Oh my goodness, did we have a heat wave. Temps in the range of 102-105° for 3 days running. And temps in the 90s before and after. It was about a week of really awful heat. On the 2nd day of the over 100° temps, I paused at the stairway that goes down to the wine cellar and thought, “hmmm, I haven’t heard the A/C system running; maybe I’d better check it.” Sure enough, I went into the wine cellar and the temp was 80°. Oh my. Bad news.

The A/C system regulates the temp at 58°. I had no idea how long it hadn’t been working. It had been over a week since I’d been down in the cellar myself to bring up a bottle of wine. Immediately I phoned the guy who has done all the repairs to that wine cellar system. He’s a one-man-band, though. He didn’t call me back. Oh-oh. I phoned him again the next morning. No response. Well, cut to the chase here. He finally answered my call that night, told me that he had received over 100 phone calls from wine cellar customers (because of the heat wave), and the soonest he could come to look at mine was about 5 days off. Not good news, but I really didn’t want to try finding somebody else. Dave trusted this fellow and under normal circumstances he’s able to come within a day. All that wine – there must be 800 or so bottles of wine in the cellar – sitting at 80°. What that does is prematurely age the wine. And it means that I couldn’t possibly sell the contents of the wine cellar because they’re now “damaged goods.” So I’m going to have to seek out the older bottles and drink them – take them to friends – take them along when I join friends for dinner, etc.

At first I beat myself up because I knew how upset Dave would have been about this. I berated myself for not checking the wine cellar more frequently. I tried asking myself, “what would Dave do?” He’d have been frantic. Not just moderately frantic, but major(ly) frantic. Angry. Annoyed because the repair guy wouldn’t call back. But once I had the date set for repair, I just had to accept what had happened. I couldn’t do anything about it. I put a vertical fan down there, left the door open and ran that fan 24/7. I don’t really know that it did much good (the temp in the cellar was 78° once the heat wave abated) but I let it run consistently for the remaining days.

Even when the guy came, he discovered it was the starter on the A/C (not the coolant, which is what I’d suspected). And, of course, he didn’t have one. He came the following day and installed it. At that point it took nearly 48 more hours for the wine cellar to get back down to 58°.

All that said, I’m just finding it difficult to take care of everything. I live in a big house and have no plans to move in the near future, but houses (especially 30+ year old ones) have problems and need repairs. Some days I feel a bit overwhelmed with it all.

So, this particular day I was feeling kind of sorry for myself (not an uncommon grief emotion), so I baked cookies and took some to the dinner with friends. And I went into the wine cellar and brought up a $45 bottle of Cab and took that along too, to their  home to enjoy. And I had a glass – it was gosh darned good, I will say. Full of fruit notes and had a beautiful nose.

This cookie recipe started with one of my cookbooks from America’s Test Kitchen. I made one addition (walnuts added to the batter because I like them). As I mentioned at the top, this recipe is different in that it called for melted butter (melted, then cooled before using it). It makes a different kind of consistency – I stood at the kitchen counter looking at the batter and tried to come up with some way to describe it – it’s more shiny (from the butter) and it looks and feels greasy. That’s not a bad thing – don’t misunderstand – that’s just how I’m describing the batter. Made no never-mind with the results whether it looked greasy or not!

These cookies didn’t turn out as thin as I’d thought they’d be – I doubled the recipe – and I didn’t measure the corn syrup – I just eyeballed it – perhaps I didn’t add as much as I should have. I also guessed at the milk. Actually, I didn’t have any milk, just cream. But that wouldn’t have made any difference. I used my handy-dandy cookie scoop for them – you bake these cookies on parchment paper. It took awhile as the recipe says to bake them just one sheet at a time. I did make some of them without walnuts, then added in the nuts for the second half of the batter. Either way they’re good.

What’s GOOD: I like the texture – they’re definitely crispy. I like that – I prefer crispy anyway. I’ve only eaten one so far, but with that, I liked them just fine. I used Ghiradelli 60% cocoa chips, which provide good, solid dark chocolate flavor. Would I make them again? Maybe. Perhaps the next batch I’ll go back to the one from Silver Moon. Look them up on my index. They’re my favorites, I think.
What’s NOT: nothing really. Liked them just fine.

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Most of the time I have salmon in the freezer, so when I need it, it can be defrosted in a jiffy and dinner can be ready a couple of hours later. This is a one-dish meal, really. It has protein (the salmon), vegetables (the fennel in the slaw), fruit (the tomatoes) and a bit of carbs from the bread crumb crust on top. I served it with sautéed spinach and that was dinner. I could have served it with a carb side like pilaf or a piece of toasted cheese bread perhaps.

When I am out of salmon as a staple in the freezer, I go to Costco and buy one of the big slabs of farm raised salmon. If you’re a Costco member, you probably get the monthly magazine they send out. I’ve learned to read some of the articles in the magazine – because they often give some very definitive information about their products. One time it was about the salmon. I’d gone off of it for awhile because of everything I’d read about farm-raised salmon – about the pens the salmon are raised in, how they are so packed in they can hardly move, eating their own detritus. Yuck. But then I read the article and learned that Costco’s salmon are raised differently – larger pens, the salmon aren’t so stressed, they eat well and they’re healthy. So I was reassured that eating Costco’s farm-raised salmon was not so bad for us. I love their farm-raised salmon – they’re big for one thing, and I think the flavor is delicious.

So, I buy the big slabs, cut them into portions. I used to vacuum seal them into 2-piece servings, but now that I’m a family of one (oh, that is so painful to even write that) I vacuum pack it in single portions. When I’m ready to eat salmon, I merely remove the package(s) and plunge it into a big bowl of cold tap water, put a big bowl on top, add something heavy to the center of the bowl to weight down the salmon below the water level and let it sit that way for about an hour. It might take longer if you have thicker pieces. That’s it. Easy.

So, on to this recipe. It originates from a cookbook called Artichoke to Za’atar: Modern Middle Eastern Food. The unique characteristics of this recipe are: (1) sumac in both the breading and the salad; (2) fennel seeds in the breading; and (3) a fresh fennel salad. If you don’t have sumac in your pantry, it’s worth buying it – it adds a citrusy note to anything you use it with – it’s a dark red color. I like sumac and you’ll find it used throughout the Middle East in their cooking.

This isn’t quite a 30-minute meal, but it won’t take much more than that. The breading is only placed on the top of the salmon. You make the salad – fresh fennel cut thinly into rings and pieces, shallots, fresh mint and parsley, a thinly sliced tomato, dried mint, lemon juice and olive oil plus that special bit of sumac. The bread crumb mixture can be whizzed up in the food processor (that’s what I did): sumac, fennel seeds, lemon zest and a bit of fresh (white) bread. You could use whole wheat bread, but I wouldn’t try using a hearty multi-grain bread – it would confuse the flavors, I think. When you have a leftover piece of baguette or a country loaf, or even sourdough, wrap it in a couple of layers of foil, then in a plastic bag and it would be perfect for this crumb mixture.

The salmon pieces are lightly seasoned with salt and pepper and sautéed for just a short-short time to get the pieces golden brown (but definitely not cooked through). You want to do that part in a skillet, but one that can go into a very hot oven (not all handles can get that hot). You gently mound the crumb mixture on top of the salmon and it goes into the oven for about 3 minutes or so – the crumb topping will get a bit golden and it cooks the salmon through. Do test it to make sure it’s just barely done. Once removed from the oven you tent it with foil and allow it to sit for 3-4 minutes. In that time mix up the salad and place it on the serving plate in about the same shape as the fish pieces, then the salmon is carefully placed on top of the slaw. Serve immediately!

What’s GOOD: I loved the flavors of the sumac, mint and dried mint. Big time. And the fennel seeds too. Fresh fennel bulb is a favorite of mine too – for some it’s a bit out of the ordinary –  it would make a lovely company meal, no doubt. I had a dinner guest that night. We both loved this preparation. The fennel salad is so refreshing, especially with the sliced tomatoes. Loved that combination too.

What’s NOT: there is a bit of preparation – the breading mixture and the salad. None of it is difficult, but it will take a few minutes to do it all.

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In this grief period I’m going through, there’s a word that’s used (learned at my grief class) that we get ambushed by life’s little moments. You never know when it’ll happen, just like in the old-time Western movies when the solitary rider was trotting along on his horse, thinking he’s safe and boom, the enemy found him, ambushed him when he least expected it. Not that grief is an enemy. Grief is a process, but it is something to get through, just like a valley where you never know what’s around the next corner. You understand what I mean, I’m sure.

That’s me. I was looking for something in the refrigerator. And when I moved something else, right there was this bottle of Smucker’s sugar-free strawberry preserves. You’d probably not think much of it. But the last time that bottle was touched was March 10th when my DH took it out to have on his toast. That was the day before he had his stroke. You’ll recall, perhaps, that he was a diabetic. I reached for that jar and I hugged it to me. And I cried. Not for a moment had I expected to open the refrigerator and end up in tears. My house is full of his touch – his handprint – his fingerprints. I can’t see them, of course. I go into his walk-in closet every few days still seeking out his scent and rarely do I find it, unfortunately. The closet is cedar lined and that’s what I smell. The other day I went into a hall closet where Dave kept his jackets. I did find his scent there, in a beautiful leather jacket he bought a few years ago. I wish I could bottle it! Don’t think I’m crazy – this is a commonplace thing for spouses to do. A widow friend of mine told me she’s still unable to dispose of her husband’s clothes, even though it’s been 2 years. I’m not nuts. Honest. Just set back by a little ambush. But I’m getting right back up and going forward. I want to, and I know Dave would want me to.

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What can I tell ya’? These are just delicious. So lemony and very tender. Yet they’re almost like a pound cake (cookie) but with lemon and then the tangy lemon glaze. All good. And easy.

At most of Phillis Carey’s cooking classes she serves dessert. Even though the class may be about fish (like this one) or chicken, she knows her audience – we always like a bite of sweet before we leave. We weren’t disappointed in these really good cookie/cake bars.

They’re pretty simple – you mix up the cake batter, pour it into an 8-inch square pan, bake and cool it completely. That’s important. No pouring of the glaze on hot or even warm bars. Cool the cake fully. Meanwhile, you mix up the glaze (powdered sugar, lemon juice and lemon zest) and when the bars are ready, you pour it on and ideally, use an offset spatula to spread it out to all the edges. The glaze is not thick at all, so you do need to work at working it out to those far corners. But worth it, and it’s not hard – just take the extra few seconds to spread it quickly.

What’s GOOD: loved the lemony flavor. Loved the texture of the cake/bars. Loved the lemon zest. Loved it all. Worth making for sure.

What’s NOT: nothing that I can think of.

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Of the 4 fish recipes I got at the last Phillis Carey class, this was my favorite. It’s something you could make in a jiffy, and as long as your kids like soup and cod, it’ll make them happy too. The garlic toasts just “make” the dish, in my opinion anyway. The broth isn’t a lot – you could make this more into a soup by adding more chicken broth. A nice big chunk of cod with the tomatoes and well, that’s it. Make extra garlic toasts – they’ll disappear.

When Phillis began demonstrating this, someone in the class asked where she’d bought the cod. Like that person, I don’t see cod hardly at all in our markets (California), but they said it came from a local grocery store and she particularly recommended we seek out Alaskan cod. She did say we could substitute mahi mahi, sea bass or halibut (but NOT tilapia or salmon). Sole would work too, but we’d want to roll the sole up into little pinwheels in order to make the whole dish work. I loved it with the cod, and next time I see it I’m buying some. Generally I prefer using fresh fish whenever possible (two exceptions are shrimp and salmon) but I might make another exception here since I think it would work okay.

So here’s the drill: You sauté garlic and red pepper flakes (just a tiny, tiny pinch) in olive oil, then you add canned tomatoes (the good kind, San Marzano brand for sure – Phillis was insistent on that part), then you add white wine, some water – then the aromatics (bay leaves, saffron, salt and pepper) before adding the nice big chunks of cod.

Meanwhile you make the garlic toasts – ideally you’ll allow the oil to sit with the garlic for about an hour so you’ve got some good garlicky flavor – then that’s brushed on the slices of bread, placed on a baking sheet, good Parm is added and it’s baked for 8-10 minutes. Serve the fish with the tomato broth and stand a slice of bread up in the bowl, leaning on the side. You definitely want to dip the bread into the broth. Altogether delicious.

What’s GOOD: the flavors just work – the saffron, the bay leaf, the good San Marzano tomatoes. A very low calorie dish providing you don’t gorge on the bread (which would be easy to do).

What’s NOT: nary a thing. Well, you’re not getting any vegetables in this dinner (remember, tomatoes are a fruit). Serve some quick cooked green beans as an appetizer maybe?

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Zippadee-doodah! Not only was I glad to be back in the kitchen again, but oh, what a good recipe I’m sharing with  you today. It’s low in fat, hearty, and really high in the flavor department. It is great to make ahead, good to freeze too. And wonderful comfort food.

Even though I have some posts already in my queue, I just couldn’t wait to share with you this recipe that I made yesterday. And yes, I know, this really isn’t soup weather. My apologies for that, but when I get a bee in my bonnet about something, it just won’t be stilled.

You’ll remember, perhaps, I posted a few days ago about watching Anthony Bourdain’s CNN show called Parts Unknown where he visits rather oddball places in the world, mostly to sample the food and learn about that country’s food culture. He is such a character – is he an alcoholic, you think? He visited Tangiers, and I was transported back to the day trip Dave and I took to that city (from across the narrow straits at Gibraltar and Spain) back about 15 years ago. And all I remembered was the soup, harira (pronounced just like it looks – hah-ree-ruh) we had for lunch. It was special and full of flavor. I’d totally forgotten about it until I was watching that show. And I could almost taste that soup. I went on the hunt for a recipe. Found several – if you google harira you’ll find several hits. I printed out two in particular and made my own version but with more of it coming from this one at bbcgoodfood.com. The other one was from about.com under their section called Moroccan food.

What makes this different is the group of spices used. Lots of them. Really LOTS of them. The most unusual, perhaps is cinnamon (although you do not taste cinnamon in the finished soup). Also ground coriander, turmeric, cumin seed, ground cumin, ground ginger and some harissa. Now, harissa is perhaps not a common staple in every grocery store, for sure. And I know I had a bottle of it in my refrigerator, but I couldn’t find it. Perhaps it hadn’t gotten used enough and I threw it out awhile back. I substituted red chile paste/sauce (the Thai one) but I think sriracha would work fine too. The ingredients are similar (a variety of red chiles, red peppers – not necessarily hot ones – garlic, sometimes other seasonings, but those are the main ones). And I’m sure if any Moroccan reads this he/she will think it heresy to use anything but a true harissa from Morocco.  You can make your own from this recipe at saveur.

As I began cooking I had a sad moment – my darling Dave would have been hovering around me, and washing dishes (and putting them away) as fast as I dirtied them. I missed his presence. I had to wash dishes three times in the process of making this soup and eating it for dinner last night. Some went in the dishwasher, but not all. He’s chuckling at me, I suppose, saying uh-huh, you miss my dishwashing don’t you? Only one of many things – oodles of things – that I miss about him every single day.

Anyway, I didn’t brown the chicken thighs (boneless, skinless) because I didn’t really think they would acquire all that much flavor from that process. So I sautéed the vegetables (onions, celery, leeks) in a bit of oil. There’s another interesting step here. Mostly I toss out parsley stems and cilantro stems, but here, you wash both and cut off all the stems from the leaves. Save the leaves for later. Also cut off the little brown stem ends. Those stems of parsley and cilantro I diced up fine with a knife. The food processor might have done it fine, but I’d already put the veggies in the workbowl so I just minced away and added them to the food processor too. All that gets gently sautéed. Then you add the canned tomatoes. Do note that you want to use canned tomatoes in puree, not just tomatoes with juice/water. The puree adds just a little bit of texture to the soup.

Water is added at this point, and I stirred in a little glob of my favorite Penzey’s chicken soup base. Then all the spices get added in, plus the chicken thighs. That mixture is simmered for about half an hour, until the thighs are cooked through. Now, you could use chicken breasts in this – no reason why not – just don’t overcook them – if you cut the breast meat into big chunks, it’ll probably not take more than 10-15 minutes to cook through. Remove as in the recipe. But don’t cook the chicken any further or it’ll get dry – yes, I know, it’s in soup – but it will, trust me. Once the chicken is cooked through, remove the pieces to a wide bowl to cool. Then add the lentils to the soup and simmer that for about 20 minutes, then add a can of garbanzo beans (or cook your own). At that point add back in the chicken that you’ve shredded by hand, or diced and minced to suit you. Taste it for seasonings. Add more water maybe.

I didn’t want a soup that was heavy-laden with carbs (the garbanzos and lentils) but you could easily add more if you’d prefer. A serving of about 1 1/2 cups is ample for dinner, with a dollop of Greek yogurt on top and some cilantro leaves.

What’s GOOD: oh my goodness, everything about this soup is good. Mostly, I think it’s the spices that make it different/good. It’s just abounding with flavor. Good for a family meal, good for freezing. Altogether wonderful, okay? Make it. Now. This is going onto my Carolyn’s Favs list if that’s any indication of how good it is. There is some heat in this soup, but you can vary it by using more or less of the chile paste.

What’s NOT: nothing, unless you don’t like lots of spices.

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So what makes this bruchetta Sicilian? All I can determine is it’s the cheese – a thin slather of cheese put on the toasted bread before you spoon on the tomato mixture. But whatever it is, this combo makes for some really good tasting bruschetta.

Daughter Sara asked me if I’d make bruschetta for a family gathering at their house. Everybody brought something. Sara made Bolognese sauce, other family members brought fresh pasta, another a salad, another some additional appetizers.

You really can’t make bruschetta ahead of time. You just can’t. Even toasting the bread I thought might make the bread more crisp. And there is a fine line (in my opinion anyway) between having a piece of toasted bread that is golden brown crispy on the outside but still retains softness inside (as this was made) and broil-toasting bread in the oven and the bread becomes little discs of hard crunch (which was not what I wanted). So I took along my handy-dandy stovetop toaster. In Italy it’s called a brustolina. A couple of  years ago Joanne Weir mentioned it on her website, said she had a shipment of them, while they lasted, etc. I bought one and have used it often. In Italy cooks use them for toasting bread (as I did in this case), but also for toasting polenta, and roasting peppers. It’s lightweight and really thin.

The metal underside (perforated) absorbs the heat from the flames, distributes it around that square thing. Then on the top there’s a wire mesh that keeps the food barely above the metal plate and it takes no time to toast things on it. I’ve only used it for toast so far. In case you’re interested, you can buy them from a Philadelphia store for $14.99 plus shipping. As I write this, they say it’s out of stock, but expected in a couple of months.

So anyway, my daughter kindly did the toasting for me while I made the tomato mixture. That part was easy, although you do need to remove all the seeds from the tomatoes (otherwise it gets too messy, oozy) and chop the tomato flesh (with skin is fine) into small dice. I added some fresh minced green onion, dried oregano, salt and pepper and just before ready to spoon it onto the toasts, I added fresh slivers of basil. And don’t even think about doing this unless you have good tasting RIPE tomatoes. I used Kumato – I do love those things. Trader Joe’s carries them and some regular grocery stores do too. They’re a dark brownish-greenish tomato, sort of, and the flesh inside is darker than usual, but it’s a really tasty, juicy tomato.

The inspiration for this recipe came from a cookbook I own called The Italian Country Table by Lynne Rosetto Kasper, from NPR. She calls her version Sicilian Farmer’s Bruschetta, and I’m assuming the farmer’s part of the name comes from the addition of some kind of country cheese (she calls for sheep’s or cow’s milk ricotta, mozzarella, fresh goat cheese or medium-aged sheep cheese). I had some regular goat cheese, but I grabbed a little tub of Boursin (flavored with garlic and herbs) and I didn’t end up needing the soft goat cheese at all. Her version uses thick-sliced bread, a lot of EVOO, red onion, red pepper flakes and oven roasted canned tomatoes. I just switched several things – I used thinner sliced bread (this was an appetizer, not the meal) – I used the green onion, none of the red pepper (we had kids eating this and didn’t think they’d like it much)very little oil, did scrape a couple of garlic halves across the hot slices of bread (actually Sara did that part), then I spread the cheese on top of the warm toasts and spooned some tomato on top. Done. Served. Do check for seasoning (we ended up adding more salt than I thought it would need, but it did). I used a fresh loaf of sourdough bread that was about 4” in diameter at its widest.

What’s GOOD: the addition of cheese to bruschetta was wonderful, but note, it’s not Parmesan. Certainly using Boursin cheese doesn’t give it an Italian flair, but I improvised and really liked the results. Use ample fresh basil, and very ripe tomatoes. Altogether delish.

What’s NOT: probably the only thing is this must be made at the moment. You could try toasting the bread an hour or so ahead and keeping it in a plastic bag, but then you’d lose the crisp part. The tomato mixture could be made ahead an hour or so – just don’t add the basil until the last.
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Today I was out shopping by myself. Bought some shoes, a few blouses and a pair of slacks. Haven’t done much shopping recently, but ended up at Nordstrom’s at about lunchtime. Went into the café and ordered a bowl of their daily special soup, a chicken fideo. The clerk at the order counter even gave me a taste of it before I decided whether I would order it or not. Oh was it delicious. Now I’m “on the hunt.” Have looked up many recipes for it and am going to figure out how to make it. (And no, Nordstrom’s recipe isn’t on the ‘net). The soup was just so good. And it looks like it’s easy.

I’m also going to make another chicken type soup. I should ask myself why am I thinking hot soup when it’s been in the mid 80s here in SoCal?. Reason: I was watching Anthony Bourdain’s show on CNN called Parts Unknown. He visits places all over the world – not the usual tourist stops, though. One was in the high Andes to seek out cacao beans, a rare white type thought to be extinct. Then in Sicily to taste all varieties of meat (he’ll eat anything), and the last one was in Tangiers, Morocco. Memories came flooding back to me – Dave and I spent a day in Tangiers –  we were on a trip with a group of friends, in Spain, and on a free day we decided to take a day trip to Tangiers. The most memorable thing was the chicken harira soup we had at lunch. The 2nd memorable thing was a visit to a spice shop – but I had no idea about Moroccan spices then. Anyway, I’ve found two recipes for that soup and am going to combine the best of both. So, there will be a couple of soup recipes coming up in the near future.

On Tuesday I’m hosting our bible study group (about 13 of us), the one Dave and I led for the last 9 months as we read The Story, the synopsis of the bible with our pastor preaching along with each week’s lesson. We’ve just finished the 9-month study and decided we would have a potluck dinner. I’m going to do my old standby favorite pork roast on the barbecue, and one of my grilled chicken recipes. Am not going to make anything new. Maybe I’ll take pictures, though, so you can see that I really am cooking some again. I’ll bring out a few bottles of wine from the cellar. The others will bring everything else including dessert.

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No question about it – I love salmon. And truth be told, Asian (soy sauce style) sauces or marinades aren’t particularly my favorites, but this one? Well, it was pretty darned good. A little on the salty side, but everyone else who ate it thought the salt level was fine.

This is another fish recipe from the class I took a couple of weeks ago at Great News. A Phillis Carey class all about fish, more fish, and more fish. I liked every one of them. This one is marinated in an Asian-style mixture (soy and fish sauce – see photo at right of the three crabs brand). It can be marinated for an entire 24 hours if you want to. Phillis did it for about an hour. Salmon is a sturdy fish and can handle 24 hours of marinating – most fish cannot – it would start to “cook” and the marinade would overwhelm.

The sauce is super-easy to make (ginger, garlic, sugar, lime juice, water, fish sauce and a tiny bit of chili paste or sriracha, all whizzed up in the blender). You just spoon the sauce over the top (and on the rice). So, you see, it’s really easy to make. Prepare rice to serve on the side and a green vegetable of some kind (so the plate has some color). I would probably do broccoli, asparagus or green beans. Any of those would work.

What’s GOOD: the Asian flavors are really nice – if you’re not familiar with fish sauce look for the 3 crabs on the label – that’s a good brand. And don’t smell it – as Phillis said – if you ever smell fish sauce you’ll likely not ever use it. So just don’t. But it lends lovely flavors to things. Trust me on this one. And if you haven’t used the fish sauce within about 6 months throw it out and buy a new one (that tip was news to me at this class).

What’s NOT: nothing at all. Don’t add any salt, that’s all I recommend. It doesn’t need it.

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Files: MasterCook 5+ and MasterCook 14 (click on link to open in MC)

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