Since I have so many tenderloin recipes on my blog already, I debated about not posting this one. But the sauce won me over. It’s just really good and full of concentrated flavor. If you’re having a bunch of folks over for the holidays, or some special dinner, there’s almost nothing easier than a beef tenderloin.

It’s always the cost of a whole beef tenderloin that stops me from roasting one more often. And when I entertain I often have just 6 people. Not worth doing a whole tenderloin for 6 – unless you really crave roast beef sandwiches – and I mean roast beef of the highest order – the next day! But the left over meat is never as good as it was when it was served first. So do plan this when you have at least 8 people. I really think you could serve 10 people with one, but if you want those nice, thick 1-inch slices, you’ll feed about 8+.

If you’re a Costco shopper, you can buy a whole tenderloin, pre-trimmed of fat, sinew and silverskin, for about $100. I’m quite willing to pay the higher price to have it pre-trimmed, as I really dislike having to do it myself. Costco carries both, so you can choose.

If we’re going to talk about sauce – and yes, we are – this one’s really good, and actually I think it’s a benefit that you have to make it earlier in the day or the day before. There is no way you can make this sauce in the time the roast is in the oven, which means the sauce IS a bit labor intensive. The biggest chore is preparing 1 1/2 cups of chopped shallots. That’s one heck of a lot of shallots. They’re kind of tedious to peel and chop. That alone will take you 20+ minutes, I would guess. The sauce isn’t hard to make, although you do have to reduce down the sauce at two different times in the process. But it all comes together and it can be cooled down and refrigerated overnight. Just at the last you mix in a thickening roux and it’s ready to serve. When Phillis Carey made this, she served it with green beans and mashed potatoes with loads of crimini mushrooms in them. And the gravy kind of went all over everything.

Maybe I’ll have to just plan a dinner party so I can make this and enjoy whatever left overs there might be.

What’s GOOD: well, to me the sauce makes this. There isn’t anything all that unusual about a roasted beef tenderloin – but the sauce here puts it into a regal league. I’d definitely make this again.
What’s NOT: only the time it takes to make the sauce, but it can be made ahead. It’s the sauce that makes it, so don’t even think of not doing that part!
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The below came from the blog, Eat Your Books. Just thought you might enjoy a laugh, or a harumph. Meanwhile, I hope all of you have a Merry Christmas or a Happy Holiday, whatever it is you’re celebrating today.

Eatocracy has Eat This List: 2014 food trend predictions. Two of their editors each describe 5 trends, along with some honorable mentions. The article has full explanations behind each selection; briefly, they are:

• Fish collars, heads and trash fish
• Heirloom beans, peanuts and field peas
• Haute Jewish deli
• Reconsidered rice (and no, I don’t know what that means)
• Raw beef
• Eating with your hands
• Housemade hot sauces
• Parfaits
• Breakfast for dinner

Over at The Daily Meal, they asked 25 chefs to  Predict the 2014’s Dining and Culinary Trends. We’ll let you look at the complete list, but here are some of the food items that were mentioned:

• Gourmet tacos
• Pork
• Dishes from Sardinia, Sri Lanka, Laos, and Malaysia (SE Asia is hot)
• Lots of grains and seeds – grits could be big
• Asian mustard greens
• Coconut sugar

And then we have the Wall Street Journal, which focused on just one trend in their article, Historical Recipes Are the Next Big Thing. As they write, “In a culinary landscape filled with Szechuan pastrami and cronuts, it can feel like our chefs are slaves to novelty, forever breaking with traditional foodways in favor of dishes inspired by artistic whims and enabled by modern technology. But look past the clamor of innovation and you’ll find some of the country’s most gifted toques quietly engrossed in old cookbooks, viewing the historical record as a treasure trove of ingenious techniques and preparations.”

However, as they explain later in the article, “The trend doesn’t stem from fetishizing the past so much as from the deeply held conviction that, when it comes to cookery, time-honored methods often trump personal innovation.” And, as  Adam Leonti (chef of  Vetri in Philadelphia)  points out, “Recipes from the past tend to lack the precise details we see in today’s texts…and that provides opportunities for creative thinking and experimentation.”

So if you want to be au courant,  dig out those old cookbooks and see which recipes trigger your curiosity. Sometimes the old is new again.

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Well then. Bisque. Most often associated with lobster, I think. And wherever you see the word bisque, it means the base of the soup is cream. Cream and more cream. This one is no exception. I haven’t tried it with half and half – perhaps it would be good – but nowhere near as delicious as this one, using heavy cream.

I think butternut squash is one of the new darlings of the produce world. That and kale. There are any number of butternut squash recipes here on my blog, and most are for soup. This is a new one, from a cooking class with Phillis Carey. She loves butternut squash, obviously. And if you’re fortunate enough to live near a Costco or a Trader Joe’s, they’ve cut them, peeled, them, removed the seeds and stuff and chopped them up for you. Love that! Of course, you pay for the privilege of buying them semi-prepared, but I’m willing to do that. I’m always a bit hesitant with the big butternut squash in front of me, wielding the big huge knife, contemplating that first cut. I’m fearful, is what it is – because the squash is so darned hard, often the knife can slip. I’m always extra careful about that. Hence, I buy the pre-cut packages!

In this version, onion is sautéed, then the squash is added in with broth. After it’s tender, it’s pureed in a blender (immersion type is the easiest) then a roux is added to thicken it up. Lastly you add the cream, fresh grated nutmeg and dried thyme. It’s really quite easy.

BUT, just know that if you use heavy cream (it calls for 1 1/2 cups to serve 8) you’ll be enjoying a whole lot of butterfat! This soup is very rich (obviously), so I recommend it be a small serving with or before a dinner. For me, it’s too rich to serve as a dinner entrée.

What’s GOOD: you definitely get the best-of essence of butternut squash – the cream just brightens the squash flavor. It’s absolutely delicious. Fabulous. And easy. You can make it ahead too.

What’s NOT: nary a thing except the calories (from the cream).

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After I got this recipe at a Phillis Carey cooking class a month or more ago, I came home and made it the very next night. I keep salmon, vacuum sealed, in my freezer all the time since it will defrost in a matter of an hour or so plunged into a bowl of water, weighted down (so you keep the frozen food under water) with a bowl on top and a big heavy item inside (like a big can of tomatoes, or something weighing about 2-3 lbs.).

First off, make the tartar sauce so it has a bit of time to marry the flavors (from the artichoke hearts [not the marinated kind], red onion, capers, green onions and pickles). Refrigerate it for a few hours if you can spare the time. I think mine only got to sit for about an hour and the last 30 minutes I took it out of the refrigerator to reach closer to room temp. Meanwhile I got out all the ingredients to make the salmon itself.

Pecans are called for in this recipe, but you can use almonds as well, if you prefer them. You season the salmon with a bit of salt and pepper, dredge the pieces in flour, then dip into an egg and milk mixture and then dip them into the pecans and bread crumbs. That you can do an hour or so ahead of time. The salmon is browned in a sauté pan, then popped in the oven for 6-8 minutes (depending on how thick the salmon is). That’s it. Serve with the tartar sauce. If you sauté the salmon in a pan that can also go into the oven, that will help with the cleanup. Dinner was done in a jiffy. During the baking time I quick-like made a vegetable and did a quick salad too.

What’s GOOD: the flavor, first and foremost. But also, this dish is so easy to make. Loved the artichoke hearts in the tartar sauce. That part was just “different.” Would make a very lovely company meal, too.

What’s NOT: really nothing.

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My usual method of keeping cookies is nothing more than piling them into freezer type Ziploc bags, pushing out as much air as possible without damaging the cookies, and stuffing the bag into the freezer. I’m fairly content with pulling a cookie out, now and then, and eating it from a frozen state.

But, not only have I run out of room in my freezer, but when you’re holding cookies for a few days, or you want to ship them, how do you keep them fresh?

Leave it to the experts at America’s Test Kitchen – actually they mentioned it on their blog, about how to keep cookies fresh. They prepared a video about it. And there’s a secret ingredient . . . I’m not going to spoil the show – watch it. It’s very quick – won’t take but a minute

In the event the video doesn’t show up above, here’s the link to the blog post they did:

Now, the trick will be whether I can REMEMBER this little tip. But then, I don’t ship many cookies, but I’m sure many of you do. Hope this helps. I’m done with cookie baking this year. I have just a few more gifts to wrap and I’m done!

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Plain and simple, I just love green beans. In my book, they’re good merely steamed or simmered in water and glossed with a little bit of butter, salt and pepper. Probably my favorite recipe for green beans is the garlic green beans. But most recently I learned how to use an almost dry frying method. They are just so simple too. This recipe today, though, is more complex – not difficult, but will take some time if you have it to spare.

As a matter of fact, you’ll find a whole bunch of green bean recipes here on my blog and there IS one very similar to this version, but it’s not quite the same. This one has Dijon in it, and that addition does give these beans a different flavor profile. As is usually the case – and what you really want to have happen – you can’t exactly taste the Dijon – if you have a good palate, you probably will taste it, but most people might not. It just adds lots of flavor to these beans.

What you will need, though, are a whole bunch of shallots. Do you ever see shallots on sale? No? Me either! But they keep for several weeks – I leave them sitting in a little bowl on my kitchen counter – we buy 3-4 at a time and usually I will use them up before they dry up. But in this recipe, one or two shallots won’t cut it – you need 12 shallots for 2 pounds of green beans. So you might need to plan ahead for this recipe . . .

The other flavor profile here is butter. Lots of it. When we tasted this at the cooking class with Phillis Carey, I didn’t pay attention to how much butter is in it. Maybe the title should be Buttered Green Beans with Dijon and Shallots. Phillis never steers away from using butter – her motto is that you don’t eat that many green beans so you don’t end up eating that much butter. Half of the butter is used to caramelize the shallots, and you’ll not even see that butter because it mostly fries away. The other chunk of butter goes in the beans themselves toward the end. In any case, these are delicious! The beans are simmered in water and drained before they’re completely cooked through (so they can still cook a few more minutes and not be over done). The shallots take awhile – at least 15 minutes probably, to get to that caramelized state of dark brown (but not burned, obviously). Then you pan sauté the beans and butter until the beans are completely cooked and serve and serve with the warm shallots on top.

You can make this dish ahead – completely. That part’s really nice, especially if you’re entertaining. I’d make them an hour or so ahead and set the pan aside. Just reheat before you’re ready to serve and reheat the shallots too.

What’s GOOD: what’s to not like about green beans and butter or green beans and toasty caramelized shallots? Nothing that I can think of. These are delicious – I almost dare you to not eat seconds. Would be good for a company meal. I like the part about being able to make them ahead of time – just reheat the 2 pans before serving.
What’s NOT: nothing, really. Just the time to caramelize the shallots, I suppose – that does take awhile – be careful not to burn them!

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The last time I made Chicken Tikka Masala, I said it was the be-all, end-all recipe (from America’s Test Kitchen) and that I’d probably never try another one. And then I read this recipe using the Sous Vide Supreme PSV-00144 Promo Pack Cooking System. I know that most of you don’t have a sous vide machine, so I’m also including the same recipe done in the slow cooker. And this is surely the time of year when it would be so nice to throw something in the slow cooker, a fix and forget kind of meal.

Do I get cravings? Sure. Like most people, I presume. In #1 position is chocolate. Oh how I wish I didn’t crave it. Not every day, but almost. I do my best to grab about 6 chocolate chips and be satisfied with that. Usually it works. In #2 position is Mexican food. As I’ve explained ages ago here on my blog, growing up in San Diego I went to a favorite restaurant in Old Town (called Aztec Dining Room – long ago closed after the mamasita passed away and the daughter just didn’t want to run the restaurant without her). We, as a family, went there at least once a week. My mother never cooked Mexican food that I can remember – maybe she made cheese enchiladas once in awhile – and she made Tamale Pie. But, I grew up with a craving for Mexican food. In my 20-35 age range I didn’t always live in places where I could go to a Mexican restaurant or buy the ingredients. But once I returned to Southern California, I could happily and easily ease the craving for a good taco or chile relleno (my usual Mexican meal of choice) at our local Mexican places.

Then, probably in 3rd place is Indian food. I don’t cook Indian all that often. Maybe once a month. In between times we go out to a couple of our local restaurants for it.

As a cook who likes to make all kinds of ethnic food, if I have a craving it’s usually not a big deal to just make it myself. And we have several Indian restaurants nearby that do an admirable job; this time, though, I did make it myself. And  yes, I was craving Indian food. I wanted chicken in that wonderful creamy sauce – tikka masala. Really, tikka masala is so easy to do, and as I read the recipe at the Sous Vide Supreme website, it just sounded so good – and easy!

The joy of using the sous vide is that whatever you cook, it cooks long and slow at a temperature way below what you’d get on the stovetop or even in the oven. Chicken breasts cook at precisely 146° F. I’ve made lots of different meats in the sous vide, but I’d never done chicken breasts until now. And oh, was it easy and was it ever tender and juicy. They cooked for precisely 2 hours. I vacuum sealed them with just a bit of butter in the packet, and in they went. The sauce what whizzed up in the blender and consisted of crushed canned tomatoes, half and half, ginger, garlic, honey, paprika, cumin, turmeric, coriander and salt. That’s it. That was placed into a Ziploc (freezer) bag and was also placed in the rack in the machine. It sat there for 2 hours also. When I was ready to serve dinner, I removed the packages, poured the sauce, as is, into a pitcher, removed the chicken breasts to a cutting board and cut nice-sized thick slices and placed them on top of some basmati rice and drizzled the sauce over the top and garnished with cilantro. Was that ever easy! With a green salad, there was dinner.

The only thing in the sauce to give it heat (it did have a little) was the ginger. If you or your family are sensitive to heat, use a bit less, perhaps.

What’s GOOD: how very easy this was to make. Also, love-loved the tender, juicy chicken. Even our 2 teenage grandchildren who were here for dinner commented about how juicy the chicken was. For kids, that was interesting to hear them say – that they’d even notice! You can see from the photo – look at the chicken – it’s almost pink. But it isn’t. It’s just that perfect kind of done. Also loved the flavoring in the sauce. It was so easy to make in the blender and pour right into the bag. I had not a single dirty pan to be washed! Just the salad bowl, plates and silverware. How easy is that?

What’s NOT: well, you do have to plan just a bit ahead, but only 2+ hours (or 4-8 for slow cooker). And, you do have to have a sous vide machine. Or, use the slow cooker – see recipe below. I’ll definitely be making this again.

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Ever made Mexican Wedding Cookies? Or Russian Tea Cakes. They’re one in the same. If you’re interested in the history of this powdered-sugar-puff cookie, read below.

My friends Jackie and Cherrie were at my house a good part of the day recently. Baking cookies. We’ve been doing this for several Decembers – we each bring some stuff, and I often make the batter for one or two cookies before the big day. This year we made cardamom cookies, chocolate almond saltine bars, cranberry noels, and these, the Mexican Tea Cookies (or Cakes), a new recipe for our Christmas repertoire. Cherrie arrived with a printout in hand –from this recipe at TLC (Discovery Channel). These are SUCH a simple cookie to make. Here’s a bit of history about the cookie (from ehow.com):

The term “Mexican wedding cookie/cake” did not appear in the American vocabulary until the early 1950s, after which the term appeared in virtually every basic baking cookbook. At the same time, recipes for “Russian teacakes” began disappearing from the same books. Russian teacakes and Mexican wedding cookies are virtually the same thing in ingredients, method and final product. Many historians speculate that the term Mexican wedding cookie/cake was used to replace the term Russian teacake due to the strained U.S. relationship with Russia at the time (the Cold War).

Aside from Mexican wedding cookies, biscochitos and Russian teacake, the crunchy buttery ball also goes by the name polvorones in Spain, butterballs, Swedish teacakes, moldy mice, pecan sandies, Danish almond cookies, Finnish butter strips, Napoleon hats and melting moments. The same cookies (same ingredients and method but with different shapes) go by different names [in] various regions around the world, and it is impossible to state who was the first to pioneer the recipe.

In that write-up above, I particularly like that these cookies are called “moldy mice.” I read online at one website that many believe it was Russian nuns who went to Mexico and began making the cookies every Christmas season or for a special occasion like a wedding. Hence they were transformed into Mexican Wedding Cakes.

What they are, are easy to make. You mix up butter, powdered sugar, finely minced pecans and some flour, and that’s about it. The dough is chilled a bit to make it easier to roll into balls. With 2 of us working at it, that didn’t take all that long. The cookies are baked for 20 minutes, then rolled over and over and over and ever-so gently in powdered sugar.

In the photo above are the cookies right out of the oven. The pecans gives the cookies a little color plus the butter too. Some recipes call for shortening, but we wanted to use a butter one since we think they taste better.

After baking, the hot little cookies are put into a bowl of powdered sugar and delicately – and I do mean gently –  rolled around in the sugar, lightly pressing the sugar into the cookies. They must be allowed to cool in the sugar, periodically rolling them. That’s why Jackie and Cherrie have sugar-coated hands in the photo at top.

After cooling completely they were gently laid onto sheets of foil. I put mine (since I was at home) in a sealing Tupperware container. They’ll keep that way for a couple of weeks, I think.

What’s GOOD: there’s nothing quite like the extra light and crumbly texture of Mexican Wedding Cookies, and I always try to eat them over a sink or a large napkin, as it’s so very hard to eat these without getting powdered sugar all over everything you’re wearing. These cookies are no different. Hence it’s a good idea to make SMALL cookies – that way the entire cookie can go into your mouth without biting it in half. Easy to make – the only tedious part is the gently rolling in the powdered sugar. That takes some patience.
What’s NOT: nothing at all – these are delicious. The only intrinsic problem is the fragile nature of these cookies – it’s hard not to crumble them in the sugar-rolling process. I broke 2 cookies while I was helping with the first batch of these (we made 2). Only solution was to eat them 🙂  !

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It’s fun being a teacher in the kitchen. All of our 3 children know how to cook, and during their growing-up years they helped in the kitchen. For a year or so during the teens, each kid had to cook a meal for everyone once a week. Skip forward 25 years, and now our various grandchildren are visiting from time and time. I’ve spent patient hours in the kitchen with each of them, helping them to master a recipe or two. Mostly it’s seemed to be cookies, because that’s what they wanted to make. Fine with me. This time, it was our oldest grandson’s [girl] friend Mary’s turn. She’s never cooked, so with coaching from me, she made dinner!

Logan had asked for salmon. I chose a recipe I’ve been wanting to make anyway, and with a couple of exceptions, I had all the ingredients. I had lemons, not limes, and I didn’t have any fresh dill. But this recipe was delicious enough as is – but yes, next time I try it I’ll buy limes and dill.

There’s Mary listening to me explain about something. I talked to her about Sichuan pepper, what a “pinch” was, and how to drizzle. Also how to use a mortar and pestle, grate fresh ginger, chop and sauté mushrooms in butter, make rice (she’d done that before). She was a very good student – I demonstrated some of the things and she quickly tried it and did it all very well.

We used a rice cooker, did the mushrooms separately, and combined them at the end. The salmon was prepped with some fresh ginger spread on each piece, salt, the Sichuan pepper, red peppercorns, a bit of oil, then they were baked in foil packets – about 10+ minutes. Mary made a green salad – I already had some of my Molasses Honey Vinaigrette in the refrigerator, so Mary just had to chop up the salad.

It was a lovely dinner. Mary did a superb job of getting everything done and the dinner came together well. And the salmon? It was really, really good. I think we all liked the crunch of the red peppercorns, and the amount of heat from the Sichuan pepper was just right.  The little crunch from fleur de sel on top was an added, nice crunch. As I mentioned, with Mary’s help, we made a rice cooker batch of basmati rice with mushrooms that was fabulous. I’ve included it in the recipe below. It was so good I made the rice again some days later for an Indian chicken dinner, which I’ll write up in a few days.

What’s GOOD: the salmon was cooked perfectly (almost under-done, but it was cooked through) and we all liked the seasonings a lot. The foil packet made it so simple with an easy clean-up. I’d definitely make this again, and it’s nice enough to make for guests too. The little drizzle of cream on the salmon at the end (just before serving) gave it a little lusciousness, although almost once poured you couldn’t see it – it was only a teaspoon per serving. I’d definitely make this again. I don’t guarantee the flavors if you use anything but the red peppercorns. Black ones would be oh-too strong, for sure.

What’s NOT: nothing at all.

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What intrigued me about this recipe was its use of some of the standard Thanksgiving foods (turkey, cranberries, parsnips, carrots) so I decided to adapt it some and have it be something you could use with leftovers.

What I had was about 1 1/2 cups of left over turkey breast from the Dry-Brined Turkey Breast I roasted the other day. I could have made turkey sandwiches, but I thought it would be enough to use in a soup of some kind. In searching for something else, I ran across the recipe in a soup cookbook and just adapted it to suit me.

I did have to buy fresh parsnips and fresh organic carrots too. The recipe includes potatoes – but I chose not to use them. But afterwards, I wondered if I really should have included them because the parsnip and carrot soup was really quite sweet. Maybe too sweet. So I’ve included the potatoes in the recipe below. The original recipe supposes you’re starting from scratch with the turkey, so it included stewing a turkey leg with all kinds of aromatics. I skipped all that and just made the soup. First you start with the parsnips and carrots, plus the shallot – sautéing them in oil and butter. (If I’d added potatoes they would have been in the mix as well). Both carrots and parsnips are more complex carbs than potatoes; hence I used them and not the potatoes.

Then you add chicken broth, a sprig of rosemary (I used a big one) and thyme (another big one) and some fresh cranberries. Although I had fresh cranberries, I decided to use some of the cooked cranberries (in compote) that I served with the turkey – I added a couple of tablespoons. Once it was cooked through it was pureed in the blender.

Adding some cream and milk to the soup smoothed it out. You’re left with a lovely, fragrant and tasty cream soup and then you add in the additional fresh cranberries and the cooked, cubed turkey. They give the soup some texture. A little garnish of Italian parsley and it’s ready to serve. You could easily adapt this recipe using left over parsnips and carrots, if you happen to have them from your holiday dinner.

What’s GOOD: Comfort food for sure. A nice way to use up some turkey (or chicken). Very different with the fresh cranberries added in – they’re a bit tart  – but a counterbalance to the sweetness of the carrots and parsnips.
What’s NOT: nothing really. It’s a good soup. We both liked it a lot.

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