Priorities

Today, I left work on time (early?) and drove to the grocery store. I had my list out to get everything for two weeks worth of menus. The grocery store was pitifully understocked such that when I got home, I realized that I was missing 4 key ingredients for the meal I had planned for tonight. I then moved to another recipe only to realize that it was already 8pm and it called for a 2-hour marinade. It's enough to leave a girl depressed.

When it comes down to it though, I have been so busy lately with work and all, I haven't had a moment to catch my breath. I don't know if this is just how things are going to be but, I think, for the foreseeable future, I'm not going to be posting anymore. There are just other things I need to spend time on.

Signing off...

The South meets the Southwest

Last night, I made South by Southwest Catfish with Guacamole Aolii (Southern Living) and Fruity Black Bean Salsa (also Southern Living). The catfish fillets were breaded with crushed tortilla chips and fried. I got the dense corn tortilla chips so the crust was super crunchy. Next time I make this though, I'm going to add more spices to the breading. There was a bit of coriander but that was it. Catfish is a dense and rich fish but needs to be matched with zestiness or else it just tastes heavy. Need to kick it up a knotch with my spice weasel. BAM!

The fact that the catfish needed more spice was more than compensated for by the Guacamole Aolii. I blended together avacado, cream cheese, mayo, garlic, lime juice, salt and pepper. The recipe called for putting a dollop of the aolii on the catfish and then topping the whole thing with canned diced tomatoes with chiles. Instead, I mixed the tomatoes into the aolii. Oh. My. God. I have my new favorite dip that I will take to every party from now until I die. This stuff was fabulous!! Zeb and I were snacking on chips and this dip before the catfish was even ready. Highly recommended.

The Fruity Black Bean Salsa was heavy on the chopping but worth the effort. It had black beans, avacado, papaya, jalapenos and red bell pepper. So colorful! It was dressed with a dressing made with the juice and zest from one lemon, honey and salt. It made a great side. Score one for Carlyn's side picking!!! Planning ahead, I can handle. Coming up with a side on the spur of the moment...not so good.

Premptive Poundcake

I'm not really a baker. I don't have the patience or the attention to detail required to make really good baked goods. However, my mother-in-law is coming into town on Wednesday and she is a fabulous baker. We recently got a new gas oven and, while I've already tried out all the cool features of the stove (Power Boil rocks my world!), I hadn't yet baked anything. Well, I baked the coconut curry chicken but that, in my mind, is cooking not baking. So yesterday, I got ambitious and baked a chocolate swirl poundcake. Actually, it's my mother-in-law's recipe but I've made it several times before and it usually turns out quite well. Gas is so cool - the oven glows! The poundcake came out great - I had a slice for breakfast (back to the bad eating habits - oh well). At least now, when my mother-in-law pulls out all this great stuff out of the oven, I'll know I tried it first.

Two meals of mac and cheese

It never fails. If I don't have something planned and Zeb's gone, I eat absolute crap. Yesterday for lunch I had Kraft Mac and Cheese. For dinner, I boiled up some macaroni and melted cheese on it in the microwave. It's lunchtime now and I'm thinking about doing it again.

A new kitchen

One of the hard things about moving has been that I haven't yet gotten the hang of the new kitchen. There's more storage but there doesn't seem to be as good counterspace as we had in the last house. I'm finding it difficult to carve out a functional prep area. The space in the center of the kitchen is quite large so I think we're going to look into getting an island to expand the prep area. I'm going to check out Target and Crate and Barrel. Any other suggestions?

Balsamic and Blue Cheese overload!!!

Zeb's been out of town so I had some friends over on Friday to keep me company. I made Balsamic Blue Cheese Portobello Burgers (Southern Living). The recipe called for big portobello mushrooms but the ones at the store were absolutely pitiful so I went with the baby portobellos instead. After scraping out the gills, I marinated the mushrooms for about an hour in a mixture of balsamic vinegar, olive oil, minced garlic, salt and pepper. The recipe called for the mushrooms to be grilled but, since we haven't set up the grill yet, I cooked them on the griddle insert on my new gas stove. After about two minutes on each side, I topped the mushrooms with blue cheese and let the leftover heat melt the cheese. I put the mushrooms on toasted buns with mayo and a tomato slice. For sides, I threw together a salad with balsamic vinegarette and toasted walnuts and balsamic and blue cheese polenta. Much better pairings than my coconut curry chicken and garlic orzo of last week. I'm slowing getting the hang of this side dish thing.

The burgers were great. I paired them with a 2003 Montevina Barbera which was quite good.

Hamburger Soup

Yesterday, we got the crockpot working for the first time since the move. I've been dying to try out all of these recipes out of Mabel Hoffman's Crockery Cooking since I got it and I think I've only tried 3. Last night we had Hamburger Soup (pg. 31). I don't know if it the cooking style or the recipes but crockpot meals always feel a bit one-note. The soup was a good one-note however. The ground beef crumbled nicely and Zeb put it enough black pepper for it to reall have a zip to it. The macaroni made it quite filling. I added a little cornstarch because it was too soupy for my tastes; I tend to like these things a bit heartier. I wish I had picked up some sourdough or french bread - this was a good sopping soup.

Finished off the Husch 2001 Chardonnay. I'm not a big Chardonnay fan - I don't like the oak notes but this one was tasty. I actually liked it better the second night than the first. Go figure!

Stunning summer salad

I should have known. The Grand Prize winner of the Southern Living Cook-Off is going to be spectacular. My go-to cookie recipe is a former winner - fudgy bon-bons. Tonight's dinner was no exception. The 2004 winner was Grilled Shrimp, Orange and Watermelon Salad w/ Peppered Peanuts in a Zesty Citrus Dressing. And as long as that title is, it still doesn't cover all of the flavors. The salad includes edamame, ginger, garlic, basil and hoisin sauce. It looks gorgeous too - so many colors. I should have saved this one for company! Zeb and I opened up a Chardonnay and enjoyed a good chat on our newly refinished kitchen table.

P.S. Don't you think the winner looks like Mary Alice from Desparate Housewives?

Best wishes!!

Dan's taking the Bar Exam this week and I want to send out my heartfelt best wishes and good luck. He's top-notch and I know he'll do well but I don't want to bother him with well wishes if he's stressed. Hopefully he'll see this but, if not, this is a shout-out across cyberspace.

GOOD LUCK, DAN!!!!

Coconut Curry Chicken...with a side of garlic!

After the hassle and disruption of the move, last night was the fist night where I got to really cook. Deseret came over for dinner and to check out the new house. I whipped up coconut curry chicken (Sunset) which turned out so easy. I melted half a stick of butter in a 9x13 pan, dipped 4 chicken breasts in the butter and then coated them with a mixture of 1 cup coconut and 2 T curry powder. Then, I baked it in a 350-degree oven for 30 minutes. It was so delicious!

About 20 minutes into the baking, I decided to make a side. Usually, I'm pretty good about matching sides, but, for some reason, I got it in my head to make parmesan orzo - an absolutely tasty side dish but not really a good match with curry. Plus, I put in a tad too much garlic. Overall, though, the meal turned out great and the coconut curry chicken is a definite repeat, once I figure out a better side.

At a crossroads...

So I checked out a few other cooking blogs and most post recipes and such. That would probably be more interesting than reading about my trials and tribulations in the kitchen. How can you really know if something is good if you can't try it yourself. In the general sense, I like the idea but there are two problems as I see it. First, it would be a pain in the ass to type out all of the recipes we use and I barely have time to put in the brief notes that I've been doing. Second, a vast majority of the recipes we use come from cookbooks and I don't know if posting those recipes would be some sort of copyright infringement. Seeing as how my two readers have just finished law school, I thought I pose the problem. What do you think?

Easy as pie!

Except it wasn't pie at all. Tonight, we made a recipe I received from my friend, Megan - Pesto Sausage Pasta. So simple and yet quite filling. I boiled up some tri-colored rotini pasta and browned some medium spicy Italian sausage. Once the sausage was browned and crumbled, I mixed in a tub of pesto and alot of parmesan. Stirred in the pasta and, voila!, dinner is served. It took longer to defrost the sausage than it did to make dinner! I should have drained the sausage though after I browned it. Mine was greasier than Megan's usually is. Draining the sausage should take care of that.

I could get used to this...

Yesterday, Zeb made the best ribs I have ever tasted - Apple City Ribs (Smoke & Spice, pg. 72). They weren't spicy at all. Instead, they were flavored sweet with brown sugar, cinnamon, carmelized onions and apple juice. The ribs were meatier than usual. I got them from the grocery store instead of Costco so that may have had something to do with it. I can't stand grizzle which usually turns me off of ribs so this was a treat. I made the side dish - Sherried Sweet Potatoes and Apples, one of my mother-in-law's recipes. The recipe called for boiling the sweet potatoes but that takes too long so I just microwaved them. I sauteed the granny smith apples in butter until they were softened and then added lemon juice, sherry, brown sugar and cinnamon. Brought everything to a boil and added the peeled and cut-up sweet potatoes. It was the perfect compliment for the ribs. It's not very often when I come up with the side that goes well all by myself!

If I were ever stranded on a deserted island with a fully stocked kitchen...

and I could only bring one cookbook, without hesitation, I would choose Joy of Cooking. In addition to being a fantastic instruction manual for just about every type of food (with helpful illustrations), there are an enormous number of recipes and they're all excellent. With all my other (heavy rotation) cookbooks, I've come across recipes that I wasn't too fond of; but with Joy, each one is a homerun. Heck, each of our all-time favorite recipes come from Joy (Shepard's Pie for me, Chicken and Dumplings for Zeb). On Thursday, I made Brunswick Stew (pg. 596). Although the recipe didn't call for it, I shredded the chicken. It was so good - spicy and flavorful - healthy too with a ton of vegetables and such. Zeb almost ate himself sick! (which I take as high praise indeed) Another great thing about this recipe is that all the ingredients were ones that I usually have on hand so this could easily be a filler meal for those times when I haven't been to the store to get the next week's menus. Somehow I don't think Zeb would mind...

Salmon is best raw

How can a fish taste so good but smell so bad afterwards? Tonight, I made Salmon Cakes with a Dill Tartar Sauce on Watercress (Cooking In Cast Iron, pg. 84). Easy to make, tasted great, but now I'm gagging in my own house. It reeks!! I think I'm going to avoid salmon recipes from now on that aren't on the outside grill and then eaten outside. I think I'm going to be sick...

Can soup soothe the soul?

I'm stressed. I'm not feeling well. Zeb's at class. So I made soup. Black Bean Pumpkin Soup. Excellent flavors of beans, tomatoes, pumpkin, sherry and ham. Wasn't that difficult to make. I would reccomend it in a heartbeat and, while the recipe made alot, I think it will probably freeze beautifully. Unfortunately, I'm still stressed, I still don't feel well and Zeb's still at class.

Corn!

On Friday, I made Easy Skillet Tacos (Southern Living) for a main dish. It was fine - nothing special - just a routine sort of dish. However, for a side, I made Grilled Corn in the Style of Oaxaca (Southern Living, June 2004, pg. 148). Oh. My. God. It was so good! I sprayed sweet corn with cooking spray and sprinkled salt and pepper all over. Zeb grilled the corn for about ten minutes until the ears were browned all over (okay, slightly singed in places). Once off the grill, I slathered the corn with an equal mixture of sour cream and mayonnaise. Then I sprinkled chili powder and grated parmesan cheese. Finally, I squeezed lime juice all over the corn. It sounds bizarre but it was fabulous! The sweet corn, the hot chili powder, the cooling sour cream/mayo mixture, the salty parmesan, and the tart lime juice; it's like every flavor type in one bite!

On another note, I didn't realize I didn't have any mayonnaise so I made my own. I'd never done that before. I used the basic recipe in Joy of Cooking (best cooking instructional manual ever). Egg yolks, lemon juice, salt and pepper whisked together and then vegetable oil slowly whisked into the egg mixture. I used a regular whisk which meant my arm was freaking tired by the end. Zeb reminded me that we have a hand beater which would have made it so much easier. Oh well. It turned out really well. Very different though from the stuff I've purchased from the store.

Corn Chowder

I love chowders. They're warm, satisfying and fill a spot inside like nothing else. It takes something special so make a true chowder. Unfortunately, what I made in the crockpot was not that special. Crockpot recipe out of Mabel Hoffman's Crockery Cookery (pg. 74). Corn, potatoes, onions and broth cooked overnight and then I pureed the mix this morning (got to try out the imersion blender for the first time - very cool). Refrigerated it during the day and then added milk and butter and cooked it for another hour. Spooned it out and dusted it with ground mace. Didn't really care for it much. Since it was pureed, there wasn't anything to make one stop and savor. It was like really really soupy grits. In eating it, it didn't feel satsifying or filling. It felt like a good base just waiting for the chowder parts to be added. Zeb and I were thinking about shredded chicken and some additional vegetables, perhaps another can of corn. Oh, and I put too much ground mace on mine. FYI - ground mace should be used sparingly - it's a very strong flavor.

Spicy!

Last night, Zeb made Thai-Phoun Ribs and Jalapeno Poppers (Smoke & Spice, pp. 74, 386). The ribs were so tender but the star of the meal was the sauce. All sorts of Thai flavors reduced down into syrupy goodness. The poppers were way too spicy for me and even Zeb couldn't handle them for long. Too bad too because they were stuffed with cheddar and cream cheese and looked so yummy. Alas, it was not to be.

For dessert, I made strawberry empanadas (Intercourses). It's one of Zeb's favorite desserts and I've memorized the recipe. It works the best with fresh ripe strawberries so it's a seasonal dessert for us. I've put together more filling than the recipe calls for and add WAY more strawberries. It's so easy! Blend together half a block of cream cheese and 1/4 cup of brown sugar (I sometimes add more brown sugar but it's a sweetness preference). Mix in 1/4 cup chopped strawberries. Using refrigerated cresant roll dough, place 4 rectangles on a greased cookie sheet. Place about 1/4 cup of the filling on one half of each cresant roll square, fold over the other side and crimp the edges. Crumble additional brown sugar on top (brush with melted butter first if you like). Bake according to cresant roll instructions.

Strawberry Pasta

If you're looking for a romantic and (relatively) easy cookbook, I highly recommend Intercourses. Each section is devoted to a different aphrodisiac food. The pictures are sumptuous and the recipes are simple and easy to follow. Even if such foods create only a placebo effect, cooking out of a book devoted to them can still get the blood hot. Plus, the book has little stories and quote dispersed throughout. I've tried about 15 recipes out of the book (all good) and have about 5 more on my radar to try out soon. (Note: I had actually typed out a list of recipes but then the site screwed up when I tried to spellcheck. I'm not doing it again. Sorry!)

Last night, we had Strawberry Pasta (pg. 57). It's basically fettuicine alfredo with pureed strawberries. Very rich and very satisfying.

Country Captain in Cast Iron

Last night I made Country Captain (Cooking in Cast Iron, pg. 72). It was a mix of tomatoes, pepper, onions, garlic, curry and thyme with chicken tossed in for good measure. I served it over rice and topped it with toasted almonds and mango chutney. Sound good? Well, it was too spicy for me. And it didn't help that I didn't finish cooking it until about 10:45. I started to eat and realized that I just wasn't that hungry. Zeb liked it though.

On another note, we've figured out the trick to cast iron - you HAVE to clean it after dinner. There's no letting it sit overnight. If you clean it right away, it's a snap (or so Zeb tells me).

Fish soup

Last night, I made Lingcod Chowder from Dan's recipe. I didn't realize how much soup the recipe made and so I didn't get enough lingcod. It had more potatoes in it than fish. Quite good though - spicy milky broth with different chunks of vegetables in it. I had never worked with lingcod before. I wasn't expecting to find bones and couldn't get them out so I didn't even get to use all of the fillet I brought home. Oh well...

Lack of posts

I have received complaints from all of my (two) readers that I haven't been posting. The thing is...my blog is about home cooking and in the last few weeks, I haven't had the time. Should be getting back in to it soon though.

Tonight's going to be an adventure...

Dan and Renee brought by live fresh mussels they gathered on the coast this weekend. I never worked with mussels before. Dan kindly sent me directions. We'll see how it goes!

Here are Dan-and-Dan's-Mom-tested cleaning and cooking methods from Allrecipes.com:

Cleaning Mussels If you want to avoid serving a bowl of full salty, sandy mussels it's a good idea to become familiar with the simple process of cleaning and debearding mussels.

1. When selecting your mussels, NEVER choose a mussel that is chipped, broken, or damaged in any way. Also, never choose a mussel that is open. The mussels should be tightly closed and stored in a cool area where they can breath. When you purchase your mussels, make sure to immediately unwrap them at home so they can breathe, otherwise they may die before you cook with them.

2. Just before cooking, soak your mussels in fresh water. Soak them for about 20 minutes. As the mussels breathe, they filter water and expel sand. After about 20 minutes, the mussels will have less salt and sand stored inside of their shells.

3. Most mussels have what is commonly called "The Beard ", also known as byssal threads. The beard is comprised of many fibers which emerge from the mussel's shell.

4. To remove the beard, using a dry towel, grasp the beard and give a sharp yank out and toward the hinge end of the mussel. This method will not kill the mussel. If you were to pull the beard out towards the opening end of the mussel you can tear the mussel on the inside of the shell, killing it. Discard the byssal threads.

5. Remove the mussels from the water. Do not pour the mussels and water into a straining device because the sand has sunk to the bottom of the bowl. Pouring the mussels and water into a straining device would cause you to pour the sand back on top of the mussels. Place these mussels into another bowl full of clean cold water.

6. Once the mussels have been soaked, use a firm brush to brush off any additional sand, barnacles , or other oceanic attachments. Rinse the mussels under cool tap water, and set aside. Dry with a towel before cooking .

Cooking Mussels There are many ways to cook mussels . The method we have chosen (steaming) is applicable for use with every different type of mussels and is an especially simple way to make delicious mussels quickly.

1. We used 1 pound fresh cleaned mussels , 1/4 cup white wine, 1 teaspoon minced garlic, and 1 tablespoon butter. This preparation begins once the mussels have already been cleaned and takes about 3 to 4 minutes to cook completely.

2. Preheat a pan over medium heat. Once you have chopped your garlic, place a small amount of butter into your preheated pan. Stir the garlic into the butter. A light olive oil could be substituted for butter.

3. Cook the garlic in the pan until it becomes a tan color. Do not burn the garlic, as burned garlic is very bitter. If you do wind up overcooking the garlic, throw out both the butter and the garlic, then wipe out the pan and start over.

4. Once the garlic is tan, add the mussels. Do not add too many mussels to the pan at once. If the mussels are stacked on top of each other, the weight of the other mussels will make it more difficult for the mussels on the bottom to open. Using this method, you should only cook enough mussels to cover the bottom of the pan at one time. Toss the mussels around in the garlic butter and coat the shells with the fat. Be careful not to be too rough when tossing the mussels in the butter, as the shells are somewhat fragile and will crack and chip.

5. Once the mussels have been coated, add about 1/4 cup of wine per dozen mussels. This creates the necessary steam required to open the shells. It will also decrease the overall heat within the pan. Cover the mussels with a lid to finish cooking.

6. After about 4 minutes, remove the lid. At this point, most if not all of the mussels will be open. Mussels, unlike clams, will open before they are cooked all of the way through. If some of your mussels have not opened, then it is possible that either they were not cooked long enough, or they are bad and should be discarded. If most of them have not yet opened, place the cover back on the pan and wait another minute or two. Be careful not to cook the mussels for too long, as they will become tough and grainy if overcooked.

7. Remove the mussels from the pan. Pour the juices left in the saucepan into your serving plate or bowl with the mussels. The juice is delicious when sopped up with slices of fresh bread.

Soup...mmm.mmm..good

Crappy weekend. Zeb was out of town which meant I slept terribly. The animals were going nuts and, to top it all off, I got a migrane. When Zeb's gone, I eat crap. While he was gone, I had a box of Kraft mac & cheese, way too many Nugget chocolate chip cookies and a ball of fresh mozzarella. It's embarrassing how little I care about what I eat when I'm by myself. Bless his heart, Zeb is always on my case about this. He's going to be heading to DC for a week next month and I'm going to have to really think if Kraft and Nugget cookies can sustain me for that long.

Anyway, tonight I made Southwestern chicken soup in the crockpot. This is one chunky soup! Corn, chicken slices, bell pepper, onion, tomatoes... I was a bit worried because the picture in the article makes the soup look quite tomatoey and red but, with only one can of diced tomatoes, there's not much in the way of red. The broth is more milky in color. I think that's from the corn and chicken. It's very mild until you add the cumin. I just love cumin. It's smoky without being spicy. We actually ran out of ground cumin a few days ago but luckily, I had some cumin seed left so I gave it a whirl in the spice grinder (formerly Zeb's coffee grinder). Oh, the smell is just divine! In eating the soup, it felt like there were too separate dishes: chunky bits and broth. The broth was too thin to really cling to the bits. Not that it didn't taste good but it was different. The taste was fantastic. I think next time, I might add a can of tomato paste to see about intensifying the tomato flavor. Also, I might add rice as well. I liked this one alot! (oh, I didn't put in the green bell pepper, I'm just not a fan.).

One thing I did accomplish this weekend was to finally go through my new crockpot cookbook, Mabel Hoffman's Crockery Cookery. I have high hopes for this one! This is where the Flank Steak in Currant Wine Sauce came from. I pulled out about 50 recipes so we'll be trying new crockpot recipes for at least a year!

Back to an old standard

After several disasters in a row, last night I went for something I knew would be good, Tuna Tatties (Ainsley Harriott's Meals in Minutes, pg. 22). It's a baked potato topped with carmelized onions, tuna, feta cheese and roasted cherry tomatoes. I know the recipe by heart by now. Super simple and very filling. So, yes, dinner was good last night. Finally!

The mystery of the traveling cutting board

For the longest time, we had two cutting boards: a big wooden one and a smaller plastic one. The wooden one is from Crate and Barrel and has been splitting and warping (and no, we don't put it through the dishwasher) - I don't recommend this brand. The smaller plastic one has been the workhorse - I think I bought it years ago back in DC (YAY Target!). So, a while back, Zeb and I realized that the plastic cutting board was missing. We searched everywhere - it was not to be found. So, I used the warping, splitting wooden one and was annoyed. Finally, about a week ago, I broke down and bought a new big plastic cutting board. Two days later, before I had even had the chance to use the new cutting board, the smaller plastic one appears in my office. Spooky...Zeb and I had no idea where it came from. We thought it might be possessed. No one in the office knew how it got there and thought it was weird that I had a cutting board in my office, regardless of size or material.

Turns out, Dan and Renee had it. Any time something goes missing and I can't figure out where it could have gone, they have it. There was another mystery involving a bucket that I won't go into.

The moral of the story is that, while I'm glad to have the smaller cutting board back, its absence finally pushed me to get a better one.

Salty Shrimp

Last night, I made Stir Fry Shrimp with Crispy Lemongrass (From Bangkok to Bali in 30 Minutes, pg 213). Note to self, when recipe calls for both soy sauce and salt, leave one out. This dish was painfully salty which is too bad because it smelled divine. Frying lemongrass gives off a wonderful aroma. Unfortunately, the fried lemongrass wasn't the type of crispy I was expecting - it was more like chewing on fingernail clippings.

Now I love shrimp, could just eat shrimp for days but last night I was having to choke down the shrimp because they were so salty. I guess I'll chalk this dish up to disaster. Now I wonder how much is my fault and how much is the recipe's?

Legumes....

I really don't like working with dried beans. They take forever to prepare and they never seem to truly soften up. Last night I tried to make Middle Eastern Lentil Salad. Very healthy and all. The recipe called for simmering the lentils for 30 minutes or until soft. An hour later, the stupid things were still slightly crunchy. In the end, we drained them when there seemed to be more that were soft than crunchy. I made this recipe as a main dish and I think it wasn't meant for that. The dressing had olive oil, lemon juice, garlic, parsley and cumin. It was quite tart and QUITE garlicky. Maybe as a side but it was a bit overwhelming (and not in a good way) as a main dish.

Crockpot recipes as requested by Lisa

Lisa just got a new crockpot and wanted some recipes. Here's the stuffed flank steak recipe which I tried a few weeks ago (delicious!) and a southwestern chicken soup which I'll be trying soon. I got these recipes out of the Sacramento Bee.

Stuffed flank steak
Prep time: 10 minutes * Cook time: 8 to 10 hours * Serves 4

This recipe is simple but impressive. It's a great one to make when you expect company for dinner, but won't be home in time to do a lot of prep work. It is based on one from an old cookbook called "Crockery Cookery" by Mable Hoffmann.

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups packaged bread stuffing
1 cup diced, fresh mushrooms
1/4 cup beef broth
2 tablespoons butter, melted
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1 flank steak, 1 to 1 1/2 pounds
2 tablespoons salad oil
1 package brown gravy mix (to make 1 cup gravy)
1/4 cup dry red wine
2 tablespoons minced green onions
1/4 cup currant jelly

Instructions
1. Combine bread stuffing, mushrooms, broth, butter and cheese.
2. Unfold the flank steak and with a sharp knife, lightly score the steak on both sides, cutting diagonally across the grain. Spread the stuffing mixture over one side of the steak and roll it up like a jelly roll. Tie the steak closed with kitchen string or fasten it closed with skewers. Pour the oil into the slow cooker. Place the steak in the cooker and roll so that all sides are coated in the oil.
3. Prepare the gravy mix according to the package directions. Add the wine, onions and jelly to the gravy and whisk until the jelly is dissolved. Pour the gravy mixture over the flank steak.
4. Cover and cook on low 8 to 10 hours. To serve, remove the steak from the pot and slice it. Pour sauce over the meat before serving.

Per serving: 456 cal.; 25 g pro.; 32 g carb.; 23 g fat (10 sat., 8 monounsat., 5 polyunsat.); 67 mg chol.; 735 mg sod.; 1 g fiber; 15 g sugar; 48 percent calories from fat.

Southwestern chicken soup
Prep time: 5 minutes * Cook time: 5 hours * Serves 10

This delicious main-course soup flavored with corn, tomatoes, red and green peppers and chicken breast strips is simple to make, thanks to several convenient canned items. Cumin, added at the end of the cooking time, gives the soup extra zip. The recipe is from "The Best Slow Cooker Cookbook Ever" by Natalie Haughton.

Ingredients
2 14 1/2-ounce cans chicken broth
1 14 1/2-ounce can diced peeled tomatoes
1 4-ounce can diced green chilies
1 16-ounce package frozen corn kernels, partially thawed
1 red bell pepper, chopped
1 green bell pepper, chopped
1 onion, chopped
4 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves, cut into thin strips
1/2 teaspoon garlic pepper
1 teaspoon ground cumin
Seasoned salt

Instructions
1. In a 5-quart electric slow cooker, mix together the broth, tomatoes with their liquid, green chilies, corn, red and green peppers, onion, chicken strips and garlic pepper.
2. Cover and cook on the high setting 1 hour. Reduce the heat to the low setting and continue cooking 3 to 4 hours, or until the chicken is cooked through and tender. Stir in the ground cumin and season with seasoned salt to taste. Serve immediately.

Per serving: 132 cal.; 14 g pro.; 15 g carb.; 3 g fat (1 sat., 1 monounsat., 1 polyunsat.); 29 mg chol.; 531 mg sod.; 2 g fiber; 4 g sugar.

Delicious crockpot recipe - Finally!

My crockpot and I have a tempestuous relationship. It has such potential to be a great kitchen tool. The idea of dumping stuff in in the morning and having a yummy meal at night is so tempting. The problem is that it is so hard to find any good crockpot recipes.

I have several crockpot cookbooks but they each have their own problems. The first is Slow Cookers for Dummies. It does a good job of explaining how slow cookers work but there aren't that many recipes in it. I think I've only gotten one or two recipes out of it that I like. Its big things are these Master recipes that you make up and then use in several different recipes. To me, that's just too close to using leftovers in a dish. I HATE leftovers. Zeb has them for lunch but I just can't stand them.

The second is Williams-Sonoma Gourmet Slow Cooker. We've had great success with this cookbook. The problem though is that this is not a dump-and-go slow cooker cookbook. Each recipe calls for sauteeing or grinding or mixing before you can turn the crockpot on. Sort of defeats the purpose. I don't often have 45 minutes in the morning to prepare a crockpot recipe before heading out which means Zeb often does these. Another annoyance with this cookbook is it will call for the crockpot to be on high for a period and then reduced to low. Unless you've got a fancy programmable crockpot, this also throws a wrench into to concept of turn it on in the morning and forget about it until the evening. But the best tasting crockpot meals have come from this cookbook so it's a give and take.

The third cookbook is Fix-It and Forget-It Cookbook:Feasting With Your Slow Cooker. It's a compilation of recipes sent in by home cooks. Most of the recipes are from the Midwest - not a region known for its cuisine. This one has the most recipes but most of them are terrible. Canned everything (usually cream of mushroom soup) and too much salt (from the packets of Lipton's onion soup mix). There are some diamonds in the rough including a fantastic Moroccan chicken dish but the majority of the ones Zeb and I tried were horrendous. I'm talking about having trouble choking it down sort of bad. The upside is that all of the recipes are dump-and-go.

The Sacramento Bee Food Section recently did several stories about the re-emergence of crockpots and included several recipes. Last night we tried one - Stuffed Flank Steak with Currant Wine Sauce. It was quite good. The steak was fall apart tender and the stuffing and sauce were delicious. Not to mention that it was a hit presentation wise what with the spiral stuffing. I served it with a side of orzo and the sauce on top of the orzo was quite a hit. As for prep - I spent about 20 minutes getting everything together so it wasn't as much of a pain as the Williams-Sonoma recipes. I think I'm going to have to get this cookbook.

A friendly reminder to back up your documents

Friday night, I settled in for a bit of television watching while I compiled the week's menus and grocery list. My laptop, which got me through law school and the Bar, made some funny clicking sounds and then said that it didn't have a hard drive. Now, when I was in law school, I backed up all of my documents pretty regularly. However, since graduating and starting work, I haven't done that. It didn't really occur to me that I had anything important saved just on my laptop...until my laptop said it didn't have a hard drive. That's when I realized that the ONLY copies of my menu spreadsheet and grocery list document were on my laptop. I nearly had a panic attack. I have probably spent close to 30 hours compiling all of that stuff. To give you an idea, I had menus planned out for almost a year's worth of dinners and my shopping list, which lists every ingredient of every menu, was 91 pages long. I've been doing this for a good 8 months. I didn't know what to do. I didn't know what was planned. I didn't know how I was going to put together a grocery list. All that hard work just lost...

Thankfully, the computer gods smiled on me and I was finally about to get my laptop running again. Everything is now backed up on several computers. And I made it to the grocery store.

So much food...

Our Super Bowl party went very well. I was worried we weren't going to have enough food but people outdid themselves. I was running out of places to put everything! I made three different kinds of chili. The chorizo and ground beef with beans was the biggest hit. We didn't seem to have any vegetarians this year so my vegetarian chili was a waste. Too bad because it looked pretty good.

My first dinner party

Last night, I got to throw my first dinner party. Now, I've had tons of people over before but never have I provided seats for them all to sit on. It was Dan's birthday and his wife Renee wanted to throw him a party. Zeb and I offered to host since their apartment is a bit on the small side. Renee and I set up two long card tables together and then decorated them in a fishing theme. There were candles everywhere and I got to use all of my new wine glasses. We had Grilled Tilapia with Mango Salsa and Curry Couscous (Rachel Ray's 30 Minute Meals 2, pg. 221). The incredible thing about this recipe is that it is so colorful and delicious but there's very little fat. I think I used only a couple tablespoons of olive oil total and I tripled the recipes. Definitely different from what we're having tomorrow on Super Bowl Sunday. Renee and I made the salsa the night before and managed to have everything ready when people showed up. Now that's a first for me. Usually, when I invite people over for dinner at 7, we're not eating until 9 at the earliest. And we made food for 10! It was a great party. For dessert, Renee and I made Dan's favorite, strawberry shortcake. The strawberries were huge but they weren't that sweet so we sliced them up thin and marinated them in sugar and a bit of lemon juice overnight. We used the Bisquick recipe for the biscuits and then topped them with vanilla ice cream, strawberries and fresh whipped cream sweetened with sugar and vanilla. And with Dan and Renee's help, Zeb and I got the house back into shape in no time.

Mild but good

Tonight I made Chicken Breasts in Pumpkin Sauce. I'm a huge fan of pumpkin. I make a fabulous pumpkin dip that is a hit at parties and some really good pumpkin muffins. I haven't made the muffins in a few years though because one holiday season, I made muffins as gifts. Dozens and dozens of muffins...muffins everywhere. Zeb and I got to the point where the sight of them just made us gag. We're coming out of our pumpkin muffin aversion though. I considered making them this past Christmas but never got around to it. By next Christmas, I should be in a place where I actually look forward to them. Again they're great muffins...in moderation.

Anyway, tonight's dinner...very few ingredients...no chopping. In a way it's great to have a dish that doesn't require chopping because that means fewer dishes to clean up, but I don't have to do the dishes when I cook and I LOVE my knives. Zeb got me a killer set of knives for my birthday (okay, maybe "killer" is a bad choice of words). These knives are amazing - everything chops so perfectly. Zeb has several scars from them but I have yet to get anything more than a chipped nail (knock on wood). I used to dread mincing herbs because our old set, while functional, merely mascerated the leaves without actually getting through. I would even bring out the food processor just to get a fine mince. Now it's so fantastic! Mincing and fine dicing are a snap! I'll even mince garlic rather than put it through the press just to get to use my knives. Oh they're so fabulous.

But again, I didn't have to use them tonight...sigh. Nope, just chicken sauteed in garlic, olive oil and butter. The recipe said to pull the chicken out of the pan once it was done and then pour in 1/2 cup of whipping cream and get all the browned bits up. Well, I think there was a step missing, like remove pan from heat. The cream was bubbling like mad and I think got burned. I went ahead and added the pumpkin, white pepper, salt and nutmeg but it just tasted awful. I ended up tossing out the sauce and starting over. Didn't have any of the browned chicken and garlic bits but it also didn't taste like crap. I didn't think I was going to like the sauce, even remade, because it was so mild in flavor. I tend to go after very bold flavors and there is nothing bold about this dish. However, the sauteed chicken topped with the mild pumpkin sauce and almonds (which were supposed to be toasted but I was tired and a bit lazy) turned out to be quite good. Not New Year's in Vegas-more like your grandmother putting a warm fuzzy blanket she made herself on you after you've dozed off, a gentle ahhh flavor. Although the pumpkin was a main ingredient, it wasn't as strong a note as I was expecting. I will definitely try this recipe again - with my added directions for the sauce.

The one thing dinner was missing though was a side. I'm terrible about putting sides with a main dish. Usually, we just throw the main dish on top of couscous or rice but this dish didn't feel like it would mesh with either. The sauce wasn't the kind the runs down for the couscous or rice to sop up; it stayed with the chicken. I guess I could have done some sort of vegetable but I never think of that until I'm staring at the plate thinking: Gee there's a lot of empty space. Oh well, I'm working on it.

Sweet seafood

Tonight, dinner was a snap, Pasta with Scallops and Lemon (Sunset, May 2004). Just a few ingredients - scallops, penne pasta, lemon, onions, garlic, and basil. It was so simple and yet the flavors worked so well together. Either scallops live beneath lemon trees or lemons grow at the bottom of the sea. (Just kidding, it's the excellent Kendall Jackson chardonnay typing). The one issue I had was with the article. In introducing the recipe, Sunset said that one night when the cupboards were bare, Jane Doe (I can't remember her name) only had scallops and lemon on hand and, voila, a great weeknight meal was born. Who the hell has scallops just lying around? Seafood goes bad!!! It's something that you get when you have a plan!!! Either Jane Doe's lying about the origins of the recipe or she wastes a hell of a lot of seafood. Anyway, good recipe. Watched I, Robot with dinner. I was impressed - Will Smith wasn't as suave as he usually is and yet he still pulled it off.

Blackberries - not just for pie anymore

Friday night was the first night I scheduled a repeat recipe since mid-September. I've mentioned this before but, after several months of trying new things, I needed to know that what was for dinner was going to be good - not just look good on paper. Zeb made Blackberry-Barbecued Chicken with Couscous (Williams-Sonoma Pacific Northwest, pg. 48?). The baste is carmelized onions, blackberries, red wine and other things all cooked down and pureed. I could eat the stuff like soup it's so tasty. Zeb didn't grill it though. When he went out to light the grill, he noticed a bunch of feathers. It looked like a bird had exploded. I have my ideas of what happened but it's not really appropriate for a blog on food. Needless to say, we baked the chicken instead. It was missing that added flavor that grilling gives a dish but it was still delicious.

Yummy burgers!

Yesterday for lunch, I made up some Caesar Salad burgers (Cooking in Cast Iron, pg. 12) . I have usually avoided burgers since that's what we make for all our big parties. Plus, I'm not a big bun fan. However, this sounded good so I had to try it. Basically, the buns replace the croutons and all of the flavors are in the beef - capers, basil, ketchup, Dijon mustard, salt and pepper. I think next time, I'll add some bread crumbs or flour to the mixture though because I found the burgers didn't really hold their shape and were close to falling apart. They wouldn't have made it on the grill but in the cast iron pan, they did alright. Anyway, once the burgers are cooked, you put them on the bun and top with freshly grated Parmesan cheese and a bit of Caesar Salad dressing (Newman's Own is the best). I didn't think I was going to like the capers but I didn't really notice them as a separate ingredient but the flavor they was quite good. And the basil in the burgers- wow! Not exactly what you would call a boring burger. They didn't need anything else. Yay! Yumminess!

A simple dinner...not so simple cleanup

On Tuesday, I made this fantabulous meal - Baked Potatoes with Lebanese-style Beef Filling. It was kind of like a special twice-baked potato. Carmelized onions, ground beef, cinnamon, fresh parsley mixed in with the potato flesh. And then there was an easy sauce of plain yogurt simmered with a garlic-salt paste. I really need to post this recipe. Zeb had EMT class so I ate before he got home. Literally, I was trying to figure out whether he would notice if he had only one half of a potato. In the end I was good though. Definitely a recipe to repeat...but I'm not sure Zeb would agree.

We have a deal where, if I cook, Zeb does the dishes, and vice versa. It's a really good set-up. Especially since Zeb usually grills which means my cleanups are a snap! So Wednesday morning Zeb started to clean up. The recipe called for simmering the yogurt sauce, covered. When Zeb got his first apartment, his mom set him up with a good set of pans. The problem with them is that the lids often create a vacuum seal, making it next to impossible to got off. This usually occurs when we've made rice. Once when Zeb was trying to get the cover off, he cracked off several pieces of the enamel in the kitchen sink. Often, he'll go out to the back porch and bang the pan on the ground until the lid pops off. Some rice will often fall out but it's not a big deal. At Christmas, Zeb and I were complaining about this issue we kept having with the pots. Zeb's mom burst out laughing and said that the pots were supposed to do this and, by putting a bit of cold water on the lid, it would come right off. Well, we felt very stupid and, upon finding the lid on the yogurt sauce pan firmly stuck, Zeb decided to try out our newfound knowledge. Didn't work. So Zeb went to his old method. He went out onto the back porch, leaving the sliding door open, and started thwacking the hell out of the pan. And the lid came off. And the yogurt-garlic sauce left the pan...and exploded over everything. Zeb, the back porch, the sliding door, the hardwood floor, the easy chair, the bar stools, the far wall which was at least 20 feet away...it went everywhere...a garlicky dairy based product went EVERYWHERE! Zeb cleaned for a couple hours trying to get it up. We're still finding it. I was at the grocery store on Saturday and noticed these white splotches on my purse. I though a bird had crapped on my purse until I remembered the sauce. We'll be finding drops of this stuff for months.

Salt and fudge

Last night, Ellen and Sean came over for dinner. Ellen and I left the boys to the football for what was supposed to be a quick shopping trip. How time flies when you're having fun! We didn't get back until 8:30. Luckily, the recipe I had picked out, Chicken Tangine with Raisins and Pistachios, was a quick one. I snagged this recipe from my mother-in-law. It's a Moroccan dish and all of the flavors sounded delicious - cinnamon, cumin, paprika, tumeric. It even called for preserved lemons. Raley's didn't carry preserved lemons. I had to look it up on the internet to even figure out what the heck the stuff was. Neither Nugget nor Trader Joes carried it although the guy I talked to at Trader Joes said they carried oranges. As a last resort, Zeb and I went to Corti Brothers. What an amazing store! Zeb actually found several different types of preserved lemons. I was too caught up in looking around at all of the amazing stuff. The cheese case is incredible. The international foods aisle was actually an aisle. As a reward for finding the item we were searching for, Zeb snagged a beer that was rated a 95.

Anyway, back to the cooking. Super fast and easy recipe. It called for putting two preserved lemons, quartered, in the mix. The guy at Corti Brothers had mentioned that the brand we selected was very salty. So I left out the salt in the recipe. Whoa...not enough salt cut. It was good but too salty for my tastes. Next time this one comes up in the rotation, I'll either leave out the lemons or reduce the amount by a lot.

For dessert, Ellen and Sean brought over an insane chocolate cake from Nugget. Oh my god, it wasn't so much frosting as spreadable fudge. I took one bite and ran for the milk. Good things come from Nugget. Would it be wrong to have a slice for breakfast this morning?

On another note, we'll be repeating our first recipe since August week after next. We still have a ton of new recipes to try out but I decided that I wanted to mix in some other cookbooks that we've already gone through to balance out the rotation a bit. Plus, while I love trying out new recipes, I've missed the feeling of knowing that a certain recipe is great. I think my recent cooking disasters have made me want to reach back for sure things.

Dinner at Megan and Tony's

Went over for dinner at Megan and Tony's place. I've been feeling a bit blah about cooking lately thanks to a few disasters in the kitchen. Megan made Chicken Parmesan with Angel Hair Pasta and Garlic Bread. She even had a side salad. The chicken was so moist and flavorful. I really need to get the recipe. Now, Megan and Tony are on a no-carb diet right now. So I was surprised that the chicken was breaded. That's when Megan told me that it was breaded with crushed pork rinds, Italian seasoning and Parmesan. I was so surprised! Everyone thought I was disgusted but it tasted delicious - why would I be grossed out by an ingredient that tasted so good? Overall a great meal. It's so much fun to hang out with friends. Oh and there was a fantastic Columbia Crest Shriaz. I think 2002.

What a waste of time!

Last night, I was exhausted. I left work a bit early because I was falling asleep at my desk. I got home and started making Chile-Spiced Sweet Potato Tamales (Sunset, November 2004). Zeb offered to make dinner but I thought I could handle it. Cooking tends to relax me and I really enjoy it. Everything started out well. I got the corn husks soaking and the sweet potatoes, coated with butter, brown sugar, and cinnamon, roasting in the oven. It smelled so good - a bit like french toast. An hour later, I had mashed sweet potatoes laced with masa flour and chipotle chiles. The recipe called for steaming the tamales on a rack in a covered pot with simmering water. Well, this seemed a bit too much engineering for my tastes and I have an awesome steamer so I thought I'd just use that. I managed to fill the corn husks and tie them up pretty well for having no experience whatsoever. I loaded up the steamer and set the timer for 30 minutes. Recipe called for 1 hour to firm the tamales but I thought I would just check them out halfway. I then curled up on the couch and half slept, half watched television. The timer went off (around 8:45pm) and I went to go check out my tamales. Now usually, the steamer gets pretty hot so you have to be careful when opening it. Funny thing though, there was a bit of condensation on the inside but it was cool. My tamales weren't firming up at all. I started it up again, quite puzzled, when I looked down and saw that some idiot (me) forgot to plug the damn thing in. Back to the couch...30 minutes later....hot squishy tamales. At this point I'm so freaking tired, Zeb put me to bed. He kept the steamer going for another 40 minutes but it never worked. I didn't get dinner and he had cereal. Stupid tamales.

We're going out!

So I had a long day and Zeb had a good day and we have reason to celebrate so we're going out to dinner tonight. I had planned on making risotto-stuffed bell peppers but I got the wrong sausage so the timing is perfect!

Some are good...some not so much

Made a couple recipes out of Cooking in Cast Iron. Last night, I made Beef and Barley Stew with Roasted Garlic (pg. 2). I really enjoyed the pearl barley in the recipe even if I did have to soak it. It was like a chewy orzo. I understand it's quite healthy too. Not that that should deter anyone from trying it! The roasted garlic wasn't too powerful for the dish which was a pleasant surprise since the last time I roasted garlic, Zeb and I were nearly ill from the potency. I had two complaints with it though. I'm not a big fan of green peppers and there were two called for. Perhaps next time, I'll put in a different vegetable. Second, the recipe said that the meat would be falling apart tender by the time it was done and mine was tough and chewy. That may be a product of my meat selection however. Packaged stew meat tends to be pretty tough and only good for slow cooker recipes. Next time, I'll just slice up a steak.

Tonight, Zeb made Jamaican Jerk Chicken (Smoke & Spice, pg. 33) and Algerian Carrot Salad (Cooking in Cast Iron, pg. 109). Zeb is really getting the hang of smoking on the grill. Although his timing still needs a bit of work. Dinner was a bit on the late side. :-) The chicken was a little too spicy for me but once I trimmed a bit of the spice crust off, it was delicious! I've never had chicken so tender. It's really impressive. The Algerian Carrot Salad was another matter though. While the ingredients sound great (garlic, lemon, brown sugar, cumin, cayenne, etc.), the result was bland. The carrots come out limp and mushy. This felt like a recipe that was trying too hard to be innovative with cast iron. It's a pain in the butt to clean a cast iron pan and this just didn't seem like a recipe that benefited from its use. I still like the cookbook but next time this comes up in the rotation, we're not going to cook the carrots for as long and pump up the flavors. Oh, another thing, the recipe called for walnut oil which is pretty expensive. Based on the outcome, it wasn't worth the expense. Surely olive oil would have worked as well. This is like where Ainsley Harriot calls for sunflower oil for sauteeing. Ticks me off because my cabinet space is not unlimited.

Scents

Yesterday I complained about the lingering smell of salmon. Today, I must extol the virtues of sauteeing onions, garlic and ginger. Zeb's just started the Apricot Chicken and, with just those three ingredients and a glass and a half of sauvignon blanc, I'm starting to let go of my crappy day. I'm a sucker for a recipe with fresh ginger. If that's an ingredient, I'm going to add it to my spreadsheet. It's spicy and sweet and so fragrant. Garlic's another ingredient that I think should be in everything. I tend to double the amount of garlic requested by the recipe (I mean, really, who's to say what the recipe author meant by 1 clove?). I used to be totally against garlic. I think that's because my best friend from high school, Gina, overloaded a bowl of my grandfather's vegetable soup with garlic powder. The smell made me ill for years. Now it's one of my favorites. Go figure!

Speaking of which, I really need to get my grandfather's vegetable soup recipe. I don't know how to describe it. I think of it as the ultimate comfort food. Just thinking about that soup makes me feel better. Huh, another thing that makes me forget my crappy day. My grandfather doesn't cook much but when he does, it's memorable. He would send me off to college with some of that vegetable soup and, even though most soups with discernible vegetables would made me gag, that soup was heaven.

Dinner was so much fun! Even though Raley's didn't have the apricots in juice like the recipe called for, Zeb made the apricots in heavy syrup work. He's much better at improvising then I am. I'm a "follow the recipe to the exact detail" kind of person although I'm also a "by accidentally skip important steps and have to scurry around to try to fix it" person. The sauce was absolutely delectable. My chicken was a bit scorched but that's due to the fact that our grill doesn't heat evenly but we haven't figured out its hot spots. Oh, and I got Lisa to drink a ton of wine with me. Jason and Zeb called me a pusher. I prefer to think of it as my enthusiasm encourages others to join me. Here's hoping she didn't get a hangover!!

Wine with dinner

Since moving out to California, I've developed a better appreciation for wine. I think it's just one of those things that happens when you're surrounded by great wineries. It also doesn't hurt that in the past few years, wineries have been producing great wines at much more reasonable prices. I'm not at a point where I notice specific flavors in a wine (such as kiwi or red plum) but I'm getting to the point where I can tell when a wine is more interesting than another. Unfortunately, I'm a bit of a lightweight so more than a glass and I'm tipsy.

Zeb's cooking tonight. We're having Pan-Fried Salmon with Pinot Noir and Thyme (Williams-Sonoma Pacific Northwest, pg. 40) and herbed mashed potatoes (mashed potatoes with a package of herbed cheese mixed in). My first day back from vacation and I just really didn't feel like cooking. Sounds like I picked a good one to skip from the sounds of Zeb yelping from the splattering oil. That should be a fun meal to clean up!

Tomorrow night we're having friends over, Lisa and Jason. They're the ones that really got me thinking that fabulous food could be made at home without all of the processed out of a box crap. Their cookbook collection makes me drool. Literally, when they lived in the area, I would spend visits just perusing their collection. Jason makes his own curry from scratch and Lisa's got a recipe for these delectable glazed carrots that I've never been able to duplicate. Anyway, we're going to have Apricot Glazed Chicken and couscous (Ainsley Harriot's Barbeque Bible). I hope it turns out well!

Just finished dinner. The salmon was SO good! It had this delectable crust, peppery and sweet all at once. Williams-Sonoma cookbooks are pretty consistent with delivering delicious recipes without too much fuss. The recipes are more involved than Rachel Ray's but not as hard as say Julia Childs'. Zeb used a Pepperwood Grove 2002 Pinot Noir in the dish and we drank the rest. While I said above that I couldn't pick out specific flavors, with this wine, I was actually able to notice a deep fruit flavor before the spicy bite. According to the website, it was cherries. All I know is that I'll pick this one up again. It was less than $10 at Raley's.

One thing I HATE about cooking salmon indoors is that the whole house reeks afterwards. While I enjoy the smell when I'm eating, after I'm full, it just makes me ill. And it seems to linger for days. I tried a bit of air freshener but oftentimes that can be even worse! I'm a big fan of grilled salmon. Maybe next time this recipe comes around, I might be able to talk Zeb into making it on the outdoor grill's burner. Would save on the oil cleanup, that's for sure!

Ringing in the New Year!

Today's been quite the cooking day. We usually have people over to watch football on Sundays. I don't like the sport but I love having people over - guinea pigs for new recipes. For lunch, I put together Southwestern Heat Burgers with Kansas City Baked Beans (Smoke & Spice, pg. 32, 372, respectively). The baked beans were a pain in the ass. First off, any recipe that calls for soaking beans for at least 4 hours before cooking them for another 2 to 3 ticks me off. I'm a fan of Rachel Ray's 30 Minute Meals. I don't like having to think about dinner the night before or start working on lunch at 9 in the morning. I'd actually started these beans for New Year's but Brian offered to make enchiladas which are absolutely incredible - I'll never turn those suckers down. So I tossed out a pan of soaking beans Friday night. Last night, I started the second bag of beans soaking and I started them cooking around 11 this morning. Oh, the recipe called for navy beans. Raley's didn't have anything called navy beans so I grabbed two bags of red beans. Should have checked Joy of Cooking (best reference cookbook ever). Turns out navy beans are small white beans. By the time I figured that out, there were a bunch of hungry people in the house and the wrong beans still a few hours from being done. At that point, I said "screw it" and went to the store and bought a few cans of white beans. That cut at least 6 hours off the recipe. I have to remember that in the future. So the Smoke and Spice cookbook is really good - Zeb pulled a ton of recipes from it. I think if we have one a week, we won't repeat until September. The problem though is that each recipe calls for a ton of ingredients and usually a cup of some other recipe. The flavors are incredible but it is time consuming. The cookbook is like a choose-your-own-adventure story. So for the baked beans, I chose the Struttin' Sauce, which also had about 18 ingredients. At first I was annoyed I had to make it but then I tried it. So delicious! I think it was my favorite part! We put the extra on the burgers. The baked beans turned out quite well but I think it will be a while before I try that one again. The burgers weren't that hot or flavorful but that may be because the recipe was for a rub and I just mixed in the ingredients into the meat. I may not have put in enough. But, I tell you what...slather on some of that Struttin' Sauce and you can't tell the difference!

After such a big (and late) lunch, Zeb and I weren't really in the mood for a big dinner. His suggestion was to just snack but one of my New Year's resolutions was to eat better and I tend to snack on crap. So I made Tomato-Basil soup (Intercourses, pg. 40 - such a great book - get it for Valentine's Day, the recipes are easy and delicious). We usually put the soup in sourdough bread bowls but the grocery store didn't have any loaves of the right size so I just toasted up some sourdough bread and stuck pieces in the soup. With the leftover basil (which tends to turn pretty quickly on me), I made up some pesto in the food processor (basil, garlic, romano cheese, pine nuts and olive oil) and used it as a garnish. Zeb preferred the soup without the pesto but I really liked it. Not too heavy but very filling.

Oh, when we got back on Thursday, I made up a batch of Chutney Chicken Salad (Sunset, May '04). It had curry powder, raisins, basimati rice, almonds, fruit chutney, and sour cream in it. Albertson's didn't have any roasted chicken, so I poached two chicken breasts in coconut milk. It really added another flavor level to the salad. I had made it once before last week before our drive to Washington but I left it in the fridge where it sat around for a week. Week-old chutney chicken salad is not nearly as pleasant as the freshly made stuff. Yuck!

The holidays...

Got back from my in-laws lst week. My mother-in-law is an amazing cook. We were so well fed!Each year, she makes dozens of different kinds of cookies. There's a full plate with a few of each variety at all times. My favorites are the nutmeg logs and the praline cookies. Just incredible. The first time I visited, I thought I was being so thoughtful by bringing a few dozen of these fudgy bonbons (soft chocolate cookie around a Hershey's Hugs - Pillsbury bakeoff winner - so yummy when microwaved for a few seconds!). Zeb had failed to mention the spread his mom puts on. I know now - I cannot compete.

These days, I just sit back and try to learn from her. Oh she made these incredible chicken breasts stuffed with spinach and mushrooms (The Ark Cookbook). I wanted more but I could only eat so much. Oh and then there was the green beans and chestnuts sauteed in whiskey. And this cranberry butter...my sister-in-law's boyfriend just started eating it with a spoon.