King Arthur Flour: Brown Sugar - Cinnamon Biscotti

Introducing a recipe worth trying from King Arthur Flour Cookie Companion: Brown Sugar Cinnamon Biscotti.

You'll need cinnamon baking chips. Ever heard of 'em? As you can see, Hershey's makes them. King Arthur Flour also sells them online. The only grocery store that I've seen carrying the cinnamon chips is Albertsons. If your market doesn't carry them but does carry other Hershey's chips, you might consider asking the management if they'll order them. Often times they're willing to accommodate customers. These chips are A-M-A-Z-I-N-G in baked goods. They're worth searching for.

Here's the how-to:


Beat up the butter with sugar, vanilla, salt and baking powder until smooth and creamy. Then beat in the eggs.

Mix in the flour, cinnamon and chips. The dough will be pretty darn sticky. Carefully dump it onto a parchment- lined baking sheet and shape it into a 14x2-inch log (it helps if you wet your hands a little bit.) I studded a few extra cinnamon chips in the top of the log (so that the finished biscotti would yield a few that would be visible on top). Stick that log in the oven for the 1st bake.

Here's the baked log. Don't worry about the cracks- they're supposed to be there.

Here's the strange part. King Arthur asks you to spray the baked log with a fine mist of water. The reasoning behind this is that it will make the slicing much easier (without crumbling). They were right. It sliced up easily enough with a serrated bread knife. It won't be the end of the world if you don't have the equipment available to spray the biscotti with water. Just be really, really careful when cutting the log or you might end up with a crumbly mess.

But wait... they're not finished!! You bake them again!

And here's the finished product! A nice and crispy cookie. I liked these a lot because A... they were not *hard as a rock* biscotti. If you prefer them that way, you might consider baking them an extra 5 or 10 minutes. And B... the whole family LOOOOOVED the cinnamon chips hidden inside! My husband noted that the house smelled like cinnamon toast, and my son just said the kitchen smelled "yummy." Good enough for me.


They make good coffee dunkers too :)

This recipe can be found HERE.

Hoisin and Honey Glazed Pork Chops + Vegetable Stir Fry

Is there anyone else out there who is "pork chop challenged?" Every time I make pork chops, I just can't seem to get them right. I can cook tenderloin no problemo, but the chops... most often are overcooked and dry.

Here's my most recent attempt at making some good pork chops for the fam...

These are Hoisin and Honey Glazed Pork Chops- modified from Gourmet.

The recipe serves 4. I halved the recipe for my small family. Super simple. Just throw all of the marinade ingredients in a freezer ziploc with the chops and let it sit for a couple of hours in the refrigerator.
When you're ready to bake, dump the chops, marinade and all, into a shallow roasting pan. I used a pyrex.

While the pork chops are baking, go ahead and make the Vegetable Stir Fry. (If you're making rice, it's time to start the rice too).

I found the most interesting little lobster-shaped piece of ginger that I just had to take a picture of! Isn't it cute? Hmmm... too bad it's not the real stuff.




So here's the rest of what you'll need for the Vegetable Stir Fry.

The ingreds. are added in three stages, so I chopped and measured into three separate bowls.

Then you saute the first batch for a coupla minutes.

Pour in the next batch and push it around until the veggies soften a bit.
Pour in the sauce mixture and saute until thickened.

Veggies done. Rice done. Pork chops done!

Dinner's ready. How did it all turn out?

I'd love to say it was all perfect but, true to my self described "pork-chop challenged" label, I baked the chops a tad too long. I used an oven thermometer and took it out at the pork -safe temperature of 160 degrees. I should have taken it out at 150 or 155 and let it rest until it rose a little higher. The marinade was very good. Sigh. I'll try them again. You should try them too as you're likely a better pork chop chef than I am!! On a rather cheery note, the veggie stir fry was incredible. We loved the sauce and the added cashews, and it went very well with the chops.
Ah well... I'll get pork chops right one of these days.

The pork chop recipe can be found HERE.
The stir fry recipe can be found HERE.

Superbowl Party Recipes

Again! I just posted about a few Super Bowl recipe ideas last weeek but we went to a playoff game party for the Chargers- Patriots game last weekend, and there are a few recipes worth sharing from that. And I know that there are people out there who are still undecided on their Superbowl Party menu!

I made a new recipe: Best Wurst Chicken Caliente Sandwiches.

These are basically bratwurst, chicken, & peppers sauteed in a sweet sauce and topped with cheese. At some point in time I happened upon this recipe from the Heinz website. It was a winner in one of their big contests. Despite the bad recipe title, this was good stuff.

One party-goer brought two appetizers that were amazing. The first was a Mexican Cheesecake Dip. I have my own recipe for a cheesecake dip so I expected it to be the same. It wasn't. Served at room temperature, the texture of the Mexican Cheesecake Dip was lighter and completely addicting. None of us could stop eating it with those Fritos scooping dip chips.

This is the Southwestern Cheesecake Dip that I usually make (served cold). It's very good. It feeds a ton of people. This dip is more cheesecake-like in terms of texture and it's best served with thicker chips or crackers.

The other recipe that we chowed down on was Blueberry Salsa. I realize that to some people this might sound a little strange. It's not. It was a nice variation from regular salsa (especially since we had salsa on the Mexican cheesecake) and it was a refreshing, light flavor to have amidst the other heavy menu items. It's a fruity salsa with a bit of a kick from jalapenos. It works. This time of year, Costco usually has tubs of blueberries at a pretty good price. Or, save this recipe to have at a summer barbecue!

For dessert, I went with the theme of the game and made a Boston Banana Cream Pie (to represent New England, of course).

This was my first venture into a Boston Cream Pie (though it's really a cake). It was certainly pretty. It was delicious too. The recipe I followed made a homemade cake, but you could easily sub a yellow cake mix if you like that sort of thing. For the big game: New England vs. New York, it might be fun to have Boston Cream Pie and New York Cheesecake for your Superbowl Party desserts.

Have fun planning your menus!

French Lentil and Roasted Beet Salad

The task at hand: to turn these glorious, fresh golden beets into a beautiful salad...

I've always had a tough time locating golden beets. It seems as if they are nowhere to be found unless you're at a well-stocked Farmer's Market. So when I was contemplating vegetables to have with dinner at Whole Foods the other day, my eyes locked onto these impossible-to-find gems. I wasn't sure what I'd do with them, but I decided to tuck them safely into my shopping cart and bring them home with me. Thank God for Whole Foods Market.

I found what I thought would be a winner of a recipe in the Food Network Kitchen's Cookbook: French Lentil and Roasted Beet Salad. One problem. No French de Puy lentils in my pantry. Back to Whole Foods I went. No French lentils there either. What was that I said about thanking God for Whole Foods Market? In order to get this salad on the table for dinner, I had to give up on my obsession to have the de Puys and settle for the everyday variety. I hate having to settle. Regardless of having to use the lesser lentil, this salad was exceptional.

The beets were washed, most of the greens removed, drizzled with olive oil and wrapped tightly in foil to roast for an hour in the oven.

The lentils were washed and then given time to simmer with spices for 25 minutes or so.

During the simmer time, the sherry dressing was prepared. Part of the dressing was mixed with the cooked and drained lentils, and some was saved for tossing with the salad greens.

The skins slid right off of the roasted beets. I diced them up and added them to the lentils along with chopped parsley. (I saved a few to sprinkle on top of the salad for additional color.










Assembly... Tossed the greens with a little of the dressing... layered greens, then lentils, then a sprinkle of goat cheese.

Ta da! A phenomenal salad. Worth making if you've got French lentils lying around... or even if you don't.

This recipe can be found HERE.

Slow Roasted Plum Tomatoes

For one of those days when you haven't got anything better to do...

I discovered this recipe for Slow Roasted Plum Tomatoes while browsing through my Legal Seafoods Cookbook. They have great seafood recipes too, but this was the one that jumped out at me.

I love tomatoes. I usually buy the vine-ripened kind or the large beefsteak tomatoes that are delicious with just salt and pepper and a drizzle of olive oil. Almost never will I purchase the Roma variety- just not as much flavor there. This recipe uses Roma (plum) tomatoes, and my pathetic local market carried some beautiful red, unblemished ones in the middle of January!

Slice the tomatoes in half and place them in a non-reactive pan (like a pyrex).

Drizzle a little olive oil and sprinkle with dried thyme.

Scatter peeled garlic cloves.

Spoon balsamic vinegar onto the tomatoes.

Bake at a low heat... for a long time. The end result... an enjoyable side dish to fish (or meat). We had these with the calamari that I blogged about yesterday. Was the all-day cooking venture worth it? Yes. It actually was a very easy dish to prepare. You just need to be home to eyeball it, and be patient. Enjoy!

This recipe can be found HERE.

How Do You Cook Calamari? In This Delicious Way...

Most likely you've ordered calamari (fried) with cocktail sauce for dipping at one happy hour or another... or at least a calamari sandwich (also fried) on some sort of beach vacation. But have you ever picked up a few calamari steaks and created a culinary masterpiece of your own? In the beginning of my foodie transformation phase -back in college, I used to buy calamari steaks, bread them, lightly saute, and enjoy them with a squeeze of lemon (amidst the repulsed stares of my roommates.) I've always loved calamari (thanks Dad!) Here's the adult me... trying out a calamari recipe on the family.

I've had this recipe lying around for quite a while now: Lemon Caper Calamari Steaks with Broccolini (originally from Gourmet). These are very much like a piccata minus-the-wine. (Well, the wine was- of course- on the table, but not in the dish!) I picked up the calamari steaks as well as the broccolini at my local Whole Foods. Both looked beautiful and fresh.

Here are the easy steps involved in cooking up some good calamari (at home):


Cut up the broccolini and measure out the garlic and red pepper. Saute the garlic/pepper in a little bit of oil.

Saute broccolini in the garlic-pepper oil, add water & salt, cover and cook until crisp tender.


While the broccolini is cooking away, measure out flour, Parmesan & pepper and egg into two wide shallow bowls.
Remove the broccolini to a dish covered with foil to keep warm. Dip the calamari steaks in the flour mixture first, and then in the egg. Place into the heated pan.









Saute on both sides for a total of just a couple of minutes, until golden. Remove the cooked calamari steaks to a platter. Give the pan a quick wipe with a paper towel, and heat butter with lemon juice and capers.









Pour the lemon-caper sauce over the calamari steaks; serve immediately with the broccolini. I halved this recipe, and just made two large calamari steaks. I wished I'd made the full 4 servings for leftovers!!

We absolutely devoured this dish. I feel seriously proud that my little foodie 6 year old said that he "l00000000000ved it!" Little did he know that he was eating squid!


We'll definitely be making calamari again. And it was a nice change from the deep fried yuck that you get at Happy Hour. Ok, I admit that the happy hour version is usually pretty darn good, greasy, heart-attack-on-a-plate fare, but this one was delicious and probably a little bit on the healthier side. And you don't even have to eat the *tentacles*... the steaks don't include them. Enjoy!

This recipe can be found HERE.

Cappuccino Brownies

Ooo... La La!

Cappuccino Brownies... a decadent, gooey and chocolatey brownie, a cinnamon- tainted cream cheese layer that is rich and creamy, and topped with a fudgy, glossy glaze. Originally from Gourmet, this one's a keeper for sure. Stay tuned for how to make this evil treat...


You'll need instant espresso powder. It's not always easy to find. If you've got a market that tends to carry a good variety of things, you might find it in the coffee aisle. If you have a tough time locating it, it's ok to use instant coffee and just make it extra strong.



When making bars or brownies, it's so much easier to handle them and cut them if you line your pan with parchment paper. If you just spray the pan (and it's ok if you do), it can be difficult to get a nice cut on the brownies because you have to dig them out.

Heat chocolate, butter and espresso until smooth and melted.


After the melted chocolate has had a chance to cool down a bit, whisk in the sugar and vanilla, and then the eggs.









Stir in flour and salt, and then pour into the prepared pan. Bake it up, and then let it cool.


Whip up the cream cheese mixture and spread it onto the cooled brownie layer. Simply melt the glaze layer in a microwave- safe container.

Drizzle glaze on the cream cheese layer and gently spread evenly with a spoon.

CHILL the brownies for about 3 hours until everything is nice and cold and firm. Here's where that parchment comes in handy... pull out the brownies and peel off the parchment. Take a large knife and cut those chilled brownies into squares of desired-size. Small squares are recommended as these are rich little bites of decadence.

Enjoy!!!
This recipe can be found HERE.

Super Bowl Party Recipes

There's some big- time excitement about football around here with the San Diego Chargers in the playoffs on Sunday. Of course, we have to get past those pesky *perfect season* Patriots but we're all remaining optimistic. In any case, I've had football party food on the mind for a while now as we've been thinking ahead to Superbowl. We had friends over last weekend for the nail-biting game where the Chargers managed to get past the Colts. I served up three recipes for the game that were perfect for football. Cooking Light's December issue included this recipe: Alabama Pulled Pork Sandwiches with White Barbecue Sauce. After reading some discussion about this recipe on the CL bulletin board, I decided to go for it. Included in the recipe are sweet potato biscuits, which serve as the bread for the sandwich. Unlike other pulled pork recipes, this recipe uses tenderloin and is simmered for a short hour in a spiced-up marinade before the pork is then pulled apart.

The white barbecue sauce is something that I've never seen before. The tangy sauce was basically salt-and-peppered mayonnaise mixed with vinegar and a splash of lemon juice. I was a bit apprehensive about the sauce as it just didn't sound all that good to me. The funny thing is... the sauce was singled out by my guests as "really good." It did work with the pork and the biscuits. This was one scrumptious little sandwich (all who were present agreed.)











I set up the pork, sauce and biscuits on a self serve platter. Some ate the pork by itself with the biscuits on the side, and others put it all together into little sandwiches.

In my effort to locate an appropriate side-dish to the pulled pork sandwiches, I settled on America's Test Kitchen's Creamy Buttermilk Cole Slaw. This one was a delightful change from the mayo based coleslaws that I've typically made. One party go-er who "has never cared for coleslaw" remarked, "Wow! This is really good stuff."



Hmmmm.... dessert for the football party? What can I do with a pile of butterfinger candy bars?? Make Butterfinger- Chunk Cookies, of course!


These were those kind of cookies where you couldn't possibly have just one! I had wished that the chopped pieces of butterfinger would remain in chunks within the baked cookie, but instead they melted into the cookie. Still good. Yummm.


I have more Superbowl Party recipes HERE.

Rachael Ray vs. RecipeGirl: A Soup Challenge

I was browsing through an old Everyday with Rachael Ray magazine the other day and stumbled across a soup recipe that looked like something I would eat. Better yet, in true Rachael Ray form, it was simple. The recipe happened to be in a section called, "Good Deal" (translation= affordable dinner). Rachael claimed that this soup would only cost a buck eighty-four per serving. I decided to challenge that and make it myself. The recipe: Wild Rice, Mushroom and Sausage Soup.


The broth and wild rice simmered for about 30 minutes, during which time I was able to prep everything else for the soup. I used a rice that I picked up a Costco a while back: Organic Harvest Medley: A gourmet blend of four uniquely aromatic California rices, including CalMati Brown rice, Wild Rice, Sweet Brown Rice and Heirloom Red Rice.


Browning the sausage was the next step. I used the store brand's smoked chicken sausage (in my effort to be as thrifty as Rachael).






The veggies were added (simply onion, celery and mushrooms) and sauteed until softened.



The broth/rice was combined with the sausage & veggies, and simmered for about 15 minutes before adding the cream and seasoning with salt and pepper.


The result: a really good soup! Was it as cost efficient as Ms. Rachael Ray promised? Just about...

The breakdown of the cost-per-ingredient was very similar. My chicken broth was slightly more expensive, however having purchased the wild rice in bulk, I was able to catch a break on that one. I went with RR's cost given for olive oil as I really had no idea how to figure that out! As the comparison chart shows, I paid a tad more for the remaining ingredients. Had I shopped around for the lowest prices, I feel confident that I may have even been able to beat the buck eighty four! My cost: $2.18 per serving. Definitely still cheap eats for a pretty darn tasty soup.

**NOTE: This recipe can be easily lightened. If you spray your pan with cooking spray and then saute the sausage, oil from the sausage will come out and will be plenty for sauteing the vegetables. Fat free half and half may be subbed for the heavy whipping cream- it just won't be as decadent.

This recipe can be found HERE.

Squash and Tomato Oven Frittata

"What's for lunch?" my husband asks on the occasion that he has the luxury to work from home. If I'm around, I like to try to find the time to make him a nice lunch that we can enjoy together. Here's one that we recently enjoyed together... a Squash and Tomato Oven Frittata. This is yet another recipe from the wonderful cookbook that I've been using lately, Williams-Sonoma: A Harvest of Pumpkins and Squash.

These are the "goods" you'll need to make this yummy frittata:

Squash is used as the crust of the frittata... I used yellow squash but you can also sub zucchini. Also needed- eggs, Gruyere (or Swiss), Parmesan, tomatoes, onions, garlic, basil, parsley, oregano, and the usual salt/pepper/olive oil. The orange bowls are these cute Mario Batali prep bowls that I got for my birthday. Love them!!

This recipe calls for seeded tomatoes. To seed a tomato, cut it in half crosswise, then lightly squeeze and shake it to dislodge the seeds. Use a finger, if needed, to help dislodge the seed sacs.

Despite the name "oven frittata," most of the frittata is done on the stove.

The squash gets sauteed for a bit and then removed from the pan. Saute the onions & garlic & tomatoes and transfer those to a bowl. The squash then is spread in the bottom of the pan and you pour the eggs on top with a sprinkle of oregano. At a low heat, the frittata is cooked until the eggs are almost completely cooked on top of the squash. I tilted the pan a bit and kept swirling the egg around to prevent uneven cooking.

The remaining ingredients are then sprinkled on top and the pan is placed into the oven until the cheese is melted and egg is completely set.

I used a rubber spatula to scrape around the edge of the pan, and gently slid the frittata onto a cutting board. At this point, my husband walked into the kitchen and said, "What is that?" (in an excited and admiring tone). "It's lunch," I said.

And it was. So we sliced it up and savoured every bite. The recipe said that it served 6, but we consumed 3/4 of it without any difficulty! The fresh tomato and basil provided beautiful color. The melted Gruyere cheese pulled it all together. My husband's parting remark... "Restaurant Quality!" (and a thank you, of course).

This recipe can be found HERE.

King Arthur Flour's Bran Muffins

We're muffin maniacs around here. I often try new and different muffin recipes. My son enjoys having Mommy's homemade muffins for breakfast, so I try to find those muffin recipes that aren't exactly like "cake." My little guy is a sweets-lover and would eat Cocoa- Krispies, a chocolate muffin and chocolate milk for breakfast if I let him. I won't. I found this recipe for Moist Bran Muffins in the King Arthur Flour: Whole Grain Baking cookbook.

The recipe calls for bran cereal. I used Bran Buds, and I don't believe I would use them for anything else but bran muffins. My son said while he watched me make them... "Are you putting dog food in the muffins?" I teased him a bit as I ate a couple of buds, but truly- these little niblets do look a little like something a dog would find appetizing. Not to worry... they're good in the muffins! A nice feature of this recipe is that you make the batter and then let it sit overnight in the fridge. It keeps for up to a week, so you can scoop it up and bake it as needed and have fresh muffins whenever you like. I found that they froze well. We put them in individual quart-size freezer baggies and took one out each night to defrost for the following morning. They were just as moist and fresh as the ones that were fresh-from-the-oven.

I chose to make these muffins in the LARGE muffin tins and was able to get 6 big ones from a batch. Nutritionally, half of a large muffin (or 1 regular-sized muffin) has 6 grams of fiber, 5 grams of fat and 250 calories. My son gave the Moist Bran Muffins a double-thumbs-up, and I felt good about not giving him "cake" for breakfast!

This recipe can be found HERE.

Best of 2007: Salads

Salads are the staple of our existence in our San Diego home. If we don't eat salad for lunch, it will most likely make an appearance at dinner. So you'll understand when I tell you that I have more salad recipes in my to-try pile than I can count. I'm always on the hunt for great salads. We seems to gravitate toward the recipes that include cheese of some sort... blue cheese, goat cheese, feta... any cheese really. Without the cheese, it's seemingly a fairly boring salad. Toasted or caramelized nuts are a bonus, as are roasted beets or an amazing salad dressing. On occasion, I throw lettuce into a bowl, place sliced tomatoes on top, throw on a few toasted pine nuts & crumbled feta, grab a "bottle"of store-bought dressing and call it a salad. This is not the ideal. I long for the undiscovered salad recipe that only a foodie would truly appreciate.

Of the 41 new salad recipes that I tested out last year, there are 5 that you absolutely must know about.


The best salad of the year... in fact the best salad I've had in YEARS is Giada de Laurentiis' Beet and Goat Cheese Arugula Salad. The beets are tossed with a balsamic dressing and then roasted in the oven to caramelize. They really make the salad. Everyone at the dinner party where I served this raved about this salad.


Caesar Salad with Pancetta: This recipe comes from Ina Garten's Barefoot Contessa Parties! I like Caesar Salad only if it's done in a unique way... interesting croutons, non-traditional dressing, or an addition of some kind. Here is one that is quite memorable. The sauteed pancetta and roasted tomatoes turn this into a "caesar to write home about." This was included in an everyday dinner for us as a prelude to pizza.

I'm a Martha-fan, and this Greek Salad with Seasoned Flatbread comes from her cookbook, Everyday Food: Great Food Fast- a wonderful cookbook of quick & easy meals that is organized by season. Sometimes the most basic salads can tantalize our tastebuds, and this is one of them. Don't skip the flatbread... it's a great accompaniment.

I shop at Nordstrom. I even eat at Nordstrom. Interestingly enough, their cafe has great salads, soups and sandwiches! Someone in the Nordstrom family must appreciate good food because they've published some cookbooks too. This Asparagus and Goat Cheese Salad with Cherry Balsamic Vinaigrette comes from Nordstrom: Entertaining at Home Cookbook. This is one salad where the dressing really makes the salad. It's quite a simple salad of mixed greens, pine nuts, goat cheese & asparagus, but then you toss it with that Cherry Balsamic Vinaigrette and WOW! Loved it.

Here is the most interesting and unique salad of the year: Grilled Corn Dog Salad with Beer-Mustard Dressing. I wish I could say that I made this one up but it does have a source: http://www.chillonline.ca/. When I saw the title of this recipe, I envisioned corn dogs within the salad. There is grilled corn, butternut squash, sweet peppers, and smoked sausages, but not a corn dog is in sight in this summery salad. I actually won a prize at our friend's annual Fourth of July barbecue contest for the best recipe. It's quite time-consuming to make this one but it created a lot of buzz and people loved it, so it was worth it.

If you have sources for other epic salad recipes, I would love to see them in the comments section below... I'm always on the hunt for the best!

Introducing: The Acorn Squash (and TWO recipes!)

Feared by some, devoured by many... behold the acorn squash! A smaller, acorn-shaped character in the winter squash family, this vegetable can be baked, steamed, boiled, microwaved or sauteed. Despite the "winter" designation, acorn squash is usually easily located year-round. One squash served two generously. A larger squash can be quartered to serve 4.

Like butternut squash, this squash has a tough skin that is challenging to cut into. Use your sharpest knife and cut straight through the middle from top to bottom.

Here's what a healthy acorn squash should look like when cut in half- orange-colored flesh similar to pumpkin, along with smaller versions of the pumpkin seed.

Scoop out the stringy centers and seeds before cooking. Some recommend using a metal ice cream scoop to do this but I personally feel like a large metal spoon does the trick just fine.

TWO WONDERFUL RECIPES FOR ACORN SQUASH:

Roasted Winter Squash with Brown Butter and Crispy Sage
Browned butter really seems to be "in" these days. I've seen great recipes for browned butter pasta and I'm dying to try this recipe for Browned Butter & Peanut Brittle Ice Cream from the Jan. '08 Bon Appetit! Sage and brown butter are a creative pairing that work well together. I love the way that sage crisps up when you fry it in butter. This recipe is delicious. It made a great lunch all by itself with a green salad and a teeny glass of Viognier (my new favorite white wine!) This recipe is from Cook's Illustrated: The Best Vegetable Recipes.

Acorn Squash Halves with Orange Pecans
"We're not a nut family," is something that I often hear my husband say. Despite his protests, I make things with nuts in them all the time. He eats everything I decide to prepare, so his aversion to nuts can't be all that bad. I served this recipe alongside a simple roasted chicken. We liked it a lot (but not as much as the previously mentioned recipe). There is definitely an orange flavor to it- I used fresh-squeezed OJ and peel. This recipe comes from William's-Sonoma: A Harvest of Pumpkins and Squash.

Ok... I've cooked, eaten and conquered the acorn squash. Your turn!

Click on recipe titles above to find the recipes.

A Flaming-Great Dessert...

Our neighborhood's gourmet club met recently to share in a wonderful feast. My task on this evening was to bring a festive dessert. The choice: Cherries Jubilee! Cherries Jubilee was thought to have made its first appearance as a dessert in the late 1800's as a treat created for Queen Victoria. Its popularity in America soared in the 1950's and 60's with housewives who wanted to impress their dinner guests with a flaming dessert. Count me in as a "housewife" who was out to impress my friends...

The recipe I found (from Bon Appetit) had a few ingredients that I knew I might have to hunt high and low for... frozen sweet cherries, cherry juice, arrowroot, and kirsch. I made a quick call to my local grocery store to inquire about these very ingredients. The clerk told me that they didn't carry any of them except for arrowroot. Great... I decided to go to the store anyways to get the other stuff I needed... and low and behold, they carried all of the ingredients I needed except for kirsch. After a quick chat with the manager (hee hee), I was off to Beverages and More to find my kirsch (clear cherry brandy).

Dried cherries, cherry juice, sugar and a scraped vanilla bean boiled down to make a wonderful sauce that was thickened with powdered arrowroot. Cherries and orange peel were added in the end to make a lovely orange-scented chunky cherry sauce.

When the big dessert moment arrived, I heated the kirsch in a small pan, lit it on fire, and asked my husband to drizzle the flaming kirsch into the cherries!

The flame lingered for a bit until it burned out on its own. Time to serve up the cherries!

Another gal in our group brought a wonderfully rich European Chocolate Truffle Cake, and I brought some Homemade Vanilla Bean Ice Cream, so we served up a sliver of the cake, a scoop of the ice cream and a dollop of the Cherries Jubilee! YUMMMY! The cake was terribly rich and gooey and chocolatey, the ice cream was super decadent, and the cherries were the perfect complement to both. I recommend this as a flaming great dessert to have when you want to impress your guests!

Recipes can be found by clicking on recipe titles above.

Best of 2007: Soups

I found FIVE soup recipes this past year that deserve the spotlight. Each is rated as "restaurant quality" on the RecipeGirl.com website (and I'd be rather happy to find these on any menu!)

This soup was a delightful surprise this past summer when zucchini was at its peak... Zucchini- Fresh Oregano Soup. It's a fairly simple soup, but it's pretty enough and delicious enough to serve at a dinner party. This recipe is from a cookbook called, The Cuisine of California. Everything I've tried from this cookbook has been outstanding.

This older recipe from Cooking Light was a new discovery for me this year: Tuscan White Bean Soup with Prosciutto. Simple to make, it's a fabulous tasting soup. If you purchase the prosciutto in the deli section, you can get a thicker cut and thus get a chunkier ham in the soup.

On an East Coast vacation last summer, I bought some quahogs (a type of clam) and cooked up a big pot of Black Dog Quahog Chowder. It was super decadent and creamy... everyone was mopping up the last of it with sourdough bread. I would make this again in a heartbeat. This, of course, came from The Black Dog Summer on the Vineyard Cookbook.

After Thanksgiving this year, I used the turkey frame to make a new soup recipe from Better Homes and Gardens: Turkey Frame Soup. My expectations were pretty low for this one, but the broth turned out to be wonderfully flavored and we enjoyed the addition of sun-dried tomatoes too.

Another recipe from Cooking Light (can you tell I'm a fan?), this is yet another super simple recipe that turns out a de-lish soup: Chipotle Chicken and Tomato Soup. It's NOT a real spicy soup, but you can easily add some heat with the addition of more adobo chiles.

Off to find another great soup recipe for 2008!

A Big Pot O' Chili

We've had frigid temperatures in San Diego lately (darn near 55 degrees F.), and some pretty good wind and heavy rains were predicted too, so I decided to make a big pot of chili to get us through this last weekend.

These are all the fixins needed to make a big pot of Beef and Bean Chili. I was a little worried about the heat in this chili as we generally do not care for real spicy food: 1/4 cup chili powder, 4 jalapenos (I used two large ones), and 2 tsp. red pepper flakes. Not to worry... read on.

One of the greatest food inventions known to have been invented: Tomato Paste in a TUBE! You know the scenario... you only need a Tablespoon or two and you have to open a full can. What do you do with the rest? If you keep it in the fridge, it will start to grow mold. You could put it in the freezer, but then you have a big frozen chunk of tomato paste! With the tube, you just squeeze out what you need and then store the tube in the refrigerator... genius! It's sometimes difficult to find but if you have a well-stocked grocery store, they just might carry it.


If you've never chopped jalapenos, there are some things to consider... like plastic gloves. Your skin absorbs the sweltering hot, spicy juice in the peppers and can be dangerous to you. Even if you wash your hands well after chopping, your skin will still have the spice on it. Be very careful not to get your hands near your eyes (or your children's) or you'll be rushing to the sink to splash water on your eyes. Remove the seeds in the peppers for your recipe. The seeds add a good deal more heat than you will likely want.

This is a no-brainer chili to make. The veggies get chopped and then are sauteed together. Brown the beef, dump in the rest; boil and then simmer for an hour. The original recipe calls for 6 cups of chicken broth, which I felt made the chili a bit soupy (as the picture shows), so I modified it to include 4 cups.

The finished product... a good, chunky, hearty Beef and Bean Chili recipe. Perfect for a "chilly" day (pun intended). Oh yeah, and the spice... just enough to add a slight spicy after-taste, but definitely not a packed-with-heat chili, so add more spice to it if you like it HOT. To garnish, sprinkle some shredded cheese and a dollop of sour cream.

The original recipe comes from the cookbook by Sara Foster: Fresh Every Day.

You can find the modified recipe HERE.

Best of 2007: Cookies & Bars

Baking is my favorite type of cooking. I'm fairly good at it (me thinks) and I love to bake and give away. Can't keep all of these wonderful treats sitting around you know! As I mentioned a couple of posts ago, I made 25 different kinds of cookie and candy during the holidays this year but it doesn't have to be a holiday for me to come up with a good excuse to make something yummy. Here are my absolute favorites that I discovered last year:

These Oreo- Chunk Brownies are a takeoff on the popular Barefoot Contessa brownie recipe. I modified Joe's recipe slightly from Culinary in the Country. These are *so-far* the most AMAZING brownies I've tasted. They are thick and gooey and chocolatey and just about everything that you would want a good brownie recipe to be. It's best to just break up the oreos yourself rather than use a food processor. You might just end up with more crumbs than cookie chunks (ahem... from experience)... but they were still delicious! Be prepared to feed a crowd- this recipe makes a ton. These would be terrific for a SuperBowl party.

Three cookies in one, these Peanut Butter- Oatmeal- Chocolate Chunk Cookies are best dunked in a tall glass of cold milk. A little bit of spice in them from ground cinnamon and freshly grated nutmeg make them a little different than the usual chocolate chip cookie recipe. Use a high quality bittersweet chocolate and you'll get a better result. This recipe has been modified from the Dorie Greenspan cookbook, Baking, From My Home to Yours.

I honestly wasn't really quite sure about this recipe until I actually tasted the cookies: Orange Almond Wafers. They're not much to look at but were oh-so-yummy. I brought them along on a multi-family camping trip (with a few other different kinds) and these cookies were the biggest hit... scarfed down in no time. Kids and adults both enjoyed them. This recipe is from the Junior League of San Diego's cookbook: California Sol Food.

A really easy recipe that is great to prepare for a quick dessert or a bake-and-take kind of goodie is Lemon Brownies. I'm not usually a cake mix kinda gal, but these use a lemon cake mix as a starter and add gelatin, oil and eggs. Top them with a lemon glaze and you have lemon "brownies." Not sure how they got that name except that they are cooked in a pan like brownies and you cut them the same way. These were a hit at a neighborhood barbecue last summer. Again, not terribly elegant by any means but really tasty. This recipe was shared on the Southern Living cooking forum.

Finally, the biggest hit in the holiday cookie category last year was Sparkling Butter Toffee Cookies. It's a delicious butter cookie with toffee bits mixed in and then rolled in sugar. This cookie stays softish and doesn't turn crispy like some cookies to after a day or two. The best thing about these cookies is that they can be made all year long! I sent my nephew (a chef) samples of all of my holiday cookies, and these were his favorite! The source for this recipe is Land O' Lakes, which has many other great recipes as well.

Baked Chicken Breasts Stuffed with Zucchini and Goat Cheese

We're talking about breasts here- chicken breasts, of course! I needed 4 bone-in chicken breasts for last night's dinner and the breasts that I picked up were much bigger than they appeared to be in the package. The 12 ounce breasts I had hunted for turned out to be well over a pound each. I used two for my recipe, and though they were enormous and took much longer than the recipe noted, they really turned out to be quite delicious. One breast served two easily so it was easily split between my husband and me, but if you plan to make the recipe, you might consider looking for the proper size!

It started with zucchini... shredded and sauteed in a bit of olive oil.

Remove the zucchini from the pan and saute some chopped onions.

Add sauteed onion to the zucchini, let the veggies cool off and mix with goat cheese, butter, egg and Parmesan. This is the mixture that you'll use to stuff underneath the skin of the breast. You can get quite a bit of the filling under the skin.

I used a toothpick to fasten the skin closed (didn't want all of that good filling oozing out!) Brushed them with a bit of olive oil and then gave them a sprinkle of herbs de Provence.

I did happen to have extra filling, so I put the extra filling in a ramekin and made my husband a little "souffle" to have. Smart move as the huge chicken breasts took a good 45 to 50 minutes to reach the *safe* temp. of 180 degrees... so hubby got an appetizer (which he enjoyed immensely!)

Finally, then end result! Beautifully baked to a golden brown, moist and juicy. I normally don't cook with skin-on chicken, but this recipe worked. The skin with the fabulous filling underneath turned out the most tender non-dry chicken that I've cooked in a long time. We scraped out the filling and discarded the skin. Each bite of chicken had a dabble of the zucchini-goat cheese mixture with it. Two big thumbs up from my family!

Recipe Source:
Modified from A Harvest of Pumpkins and Squash: Seasonal Recipes from Williams- Sonoma

This recipe can be found HERE.

Best of 2007: Breads

As self-proclaimed carb-0-holics, our family enjoys all things that are bread and pasta! Here are a few of our favorite new-to-us recipes from 2007.

This Marbled Chocolate- Banana Bread from Cooking Light has been around quite a long time but we only discovered its goodness last year. It's a wonderfully moist banana bread with a chocolate swirl throughout that is not overwhelming (thus light), and it's one of those quick bread recipes where the flavor improves with age as it sits on your counter. My 6 year old absolutely loves this bread and literally begs me to make it often. He could, however, make it himself. He won a blue-ribbon with this recipe at the San Diego County Fair this past summer!

On our summer vacation in Massachusetts last summer, we were able to pick up the largest blueberries known to mankind. I'm not even a huge eat-them-by-themselves blueberry fan, but these were just truly amazing. I made several recipes with those gargantuan blueberries, but this one was our favorite: Whole Wheat Banana Blueberrry Muffins. As you can see from the picture, the blueberries I used were prominent in these muffins and provided for a juicy blueberry mouthful in every bite. This recipe comes from a wonderful cookbook true to the theme of our east-coast vacation: The Black Dog Summer on the Vineyard Cookbook.

I learned the hard way this past year that you need to pick up bags of fresh cranberries when they're in season and throw them in the freezer for when you need them in off-season times. I needed them for a recipe in early fall and had to search 5 stores before I finally found one bag hidden in the corner of a small gourmet grocery store's freezer case for $5.99. I'm well stocked for 2008 with several bags tucked into my freezer! Cranberry- Orange Bread was a big family favorite in the quick-bread category. It's super moist and just the right thing for a fall breakfast. We ate almost the whole thing in one breakfast sitting. This recipe comes from the San Diego Junior League cookbook: California Sol Food.

Another Cooking Light recipe, Roasted Garlic & Rosemary Cloverleaf Rolls, made the top bread picks for us this year. These were pretty time-intensive but well worth the effort. I think they'd be easier to make the second time around. They were our rolls for Thanksgiving last year, and they turned out perfect. I made them early in the day and then simply heated them up in the oven a bit while carving the turkey. Thanks to Joe at the Culinary in the Country blog for recommending this recipe!
The first recipe made in my new Kitchen Aid mixer this year was Pete's Whole Wheat Bread. The handy dough hook saved me from going into kneading madness! This bread was also one of my first ventures into trying to make yeast breads. I've made these loaves a few times this year and they've been right-on every time. Who is Pete? He's a fellow Cooking.com forum member who generously shared his bread recipe that he's been using for the past 35 years! Thanks to Pete for this terrific everyday bread recipe.

Low Carb Start to the New Year...

Taste testers in my house were in heaven this year as I baked up 25 brand-new cookie and candy recipes for the holidays. Many of those were given away to friends, but we managed to consume our fair share. I'm happy to report that they are now officially *gone* and we're ready for de-tox! Everyone once in a while I do a bit of a low-carb thing to kick-off weight loss. Luckily, my husband goes along with it. As long as I'm still cooking up dinner that doesn't seem like a starter dish (ie. salad for dinner), he's happy. I found a great recipe to kick off the first day of the New Year...

Spaghetti Squash with Spicy Meat Sauce

I'm not terribly experienced with spaghetti squash. My vegetarian roommate in college was obsessed with the stuff, but I turned my nose up. I do know that you need to cook the stuff a pretty darn long time to get a nice tender squash. Mine was in the oven for about 75 minutes. The spaghetti squash should easily come out of its shell and flake apart into strands. In this recipe, you brown some butter and mix it in with the squash strands, then top it with the meat sauce that has simmered for an hour. I suggest getting the squash into the oven before you start the meat sauce. Hints of cinnamon and a surprise topping of avocado really made this dish unique. My husband enjoyed it, and I loved it. Since the squash took longer than I had expected, I didn't get to try it out on my 6 year old, but he'll be tasting some tonight. I'm hoping to pass it off as spaghetti!

This recipe can be found HERE:

This recipe was discovered in this seasonal cookbook that I picked up from William's Sonoma last fall. I was actually on the hunt for a cookbook that would look pretty in my countertop cookbook holder. Fortunately, this actually looks to be a really fabulous cookbook with some unique recipes. Chapters are divided into Breads/Breakfast, Soups/Salads/Sides, Entrees and Desserts. Other recipes that look intriguing to me are the Rosemary-Polenta Pumpkin Muffins, Tortellini with Butternut Squash, Artichoke Hearts and Pecorino, and the Five Spice Pumpkin-Ginger Cake (there are chocolate chips in that one!) I'll be tucking these recipes away for a day when carbs and sweets are allowed again!

Best of 2007: Appetizers

Welcome to my Blog! I figured January 1st was as good a time as any to start a fun, new venture. With the RecipeGirl.com site up and running and getting great traffic, I decided to dive into the world of blogging about my adventures in the world of food.

I prepared something like 300 new recipes this year, so I thought it would be nice to venture back and choose the best, most-remembered, most-worthy-of-repeating recipes of 2007. Here goes...

I'll chat a bit about APPETIZERS today...

A fun summer appetizer was a good one from Cooking Light- Bruschetta with Peach Salsa and Melted Brie. It just had *summer* written all over it, and it was a great appetizer for a barbecue we had with friends. The married flavors of sweet fresh peaches and melted brie work very well together.

A most popular recipe on my site in the fall was Goat Cheese Truffles with Spicy Maple Pecans. These were a most unique appetizer- basically just little balls of goat cheese with a little salt & pepper and then rolled in the most amazing sweet pecans. The leftover pecans were terrific in salads too.

I brought Asian Lettuce Wraps to a friend's house for dinner one evening last summer. The meat mixture was slightly sweet and very flavorful. I'd be happy having this one for dinner. They were a big hit, and it was a fun one because you get to wrap your own. The kids thought it was cool too.

This recipe for Crostini with Gorgonzola, Caramelized Onions and Fig Jam is one that has looked intriguing to me for a long time. I'm a bit aversive to figs as I grew up with a Swedish grandmother who *lovingly* made me fig cookies that I absolutely could not eat! I cheated a little on this recipe by using purchased fig preserves instead of preparing the homemade fig jam in the recipe. They were still delicious. I just may have to give figs another try...

I just made Pepperoni Dip the other day, which was terribly addicting. I've often seen this recipe around on the internet and can't believe I haven't whipped this one up before. It's kid-friendly, and it would make a great dip for a Superbowl party!


2007 was a terrific year of feeding friends and family, and the numerous cocktail parties, barbecues, and happy hours were great opportunities to try out new recipes!

I plan to continue my "best-of 2007" series interspersed with the usual cooking adventures!