The Barefoot Kitchen Witch

Just for Laughs

I have started a new photo album over there on the right - "Cakes for Laughs."  I used to design and make a lot of birthday cakes - it was one of my (then many) creative outlets.  I was flipping through my own "Album of Cakes" - a photo record of a lot of the cakes I've made over the years - and decided to post a selection of them. 

This first batch is of cakes that were done on or near Halloween over the years.  Halloween is my sister's birthday, so a bunch of the cakes were for her.  My nephew's birthday is a few days later, and so most of the time the two birthdays have been celebrated together.

I know there are more - there seem to be gaps in time in the album.

Anyway - in a couple of weeks I'll do another bunch of them.

I don't pretend that they are great in any way - but they were fun, and I post them for my own amusement as much as anyone else's. Anyway - over there - "Cakes for Laughs - the Halloween Series" unfolds.....

Baked Pork Chops

This is an old family favorite.  I think I'm going to make it for dinner tomorrow night.  And serve it with baked potatoes...and maybe a baby spinach salad...

Anyway...here goes:

(This recipe serves 4...or 2 if one of them is a very hungry me.)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Combine the following in one bowl:  1/2 cup cracker crumbs, 1/2 t poultry seasoning, 1/8 t pepper, 1 t salt.

Combine, in another bowl, 1 egg, slightly beaten, and a tablespoon of water.

Dip 4 thick pork chops, one at a time, in the crumb mixture, then the egg mixture, then back in the crumb mixture, and set aside.

In a skillet, melt 2 tablespoons of shortening. 

Brown each of the pork chops on med high heat.  Remove from the pan and place in a baking dish.

Over low heat, blend a tablespoon of flour and a quarter teaspoon of salt with the remaining melted shortening in the pan.  If there isn't any, you can melt a little more shortening, or pour in a little vegetable oil.  You are making a roux here - the fat and flour mixture.  When the roux is smooth, whisk in a cup of milk and a cup of water.  Turn the heat up and continue stirring/whisking the mixture until it comes to a boil and thickens.

Pour this over the pork chops in the baking dish, cover the dish with foil, and bake for about 35 minutes.  Remove the foil and bake for another 10-15 minutes.  Serve.

Two Pizzas

I made two pizzas tonight.

Here's what I did:

Took two 16 oz packages of store-bought pizza dough out of the fridge about a couple hours before my projected dinner time.  Set them out on a counter - still in their packages - to come to room temperature.

Then I got the toppings ready...

First pizza -

Chopped about 3 strips of bacon into 3/4 inch square pieces (approximately).  Cooked them over high heat in a large saute pan until they had rendered most of their fat and were crisp.  Took them out of the pan and set them on a few layers of paper towel on a plate. 

Next - dumped in about, oh, 8 cups of sliced onions.  (I'm guessing - I just used up what I had, which was maybe 8 to 10 small to medium onions.)  Sprinkled a little salt over them and stirred them all around to coat the onions with the bacon fat.  Turned the heat down to medium low and let them go, stirring every now and then, until they just started to caramelize - roughly a half an hour.

While the onions were cooking, I combined about a third to a half of a cup of crumbled feta cheese with about the same amount of ricotta cheese.  Set that aside with the bacon.

Preheated the oven to 450 degrees F.

Then I started working on the topping for pizza number two.

I combined about a third of a cup of basil pureed with olive oil (this had been in the freezer all ready to go from when we harvested all the basil a few weeks ago) - with 3 big fat cloves of garlic, minced.  And about a tablespoon (all I had left) of grated parmesan.  Set that aside.

Assembly:

Pizza number one:  I spread the dough out on the baking sheet.  Rubbed a little olive oil over the surface.  Dotted the top with blobs of the ricotta/feta mixture.  Topped that with about half of the caramelized onions, and then sprinkled the bits of bacon over the top.

Pizza number two:  I drizzled olive oil over the pizza dough (already stretched out and ready to go).  Then smeared the basil mixture on top, and dotted (my word of the day) with ricotta cheese and sprinkled with salt and pepper.

They both took about 25 minutes to cook.  Alex liked the basil pizza.  Julia liked both.  So did Bill and I.  Bill's been sick, so he had tea.  Alex and Julia had juice, and I had some pinot grigio...hang on, let me see which one...Carsasa - estate bottled in Italy...it's actually a pinot grigio/pinot blanc blend (51%/49%)...and oddly enough, I couldn't see the year anywhere on the bottle...I'll look again later.  Maybe it was hiding.

Anyway - that's what we had for dinner tonight.

Oh!  Almost forgot - I've put the other half of the caramelized onions in the freezer.  I figured they'd be nice to have on hand.  If we were planning to have, oh, steak tomorrow, I'd have kept them in the fridge...and I would have bought mushrooms while I was at the store today, too....

Feta and Olive Dip

In a food processor combine the following:

One part kalamata olives (seeds removed)

Two parts feta cheese

some black pepper if you wish

Put the food processor lid on and turn the machine on and slowly drizzle in some olive oil until the mixture reaches a pleasing dippable consistency.

Put mixture in a bowl.

Serve.

Arugula Pesto

I don't have complete or precise measurements - this was just a "wing it" thing tonight.

Here's what I threw in the food processer:

A couple of big handfuls (handsful?) of arugula (from the garden)
A few small bunches of basil (from the garden)
Some Italian flat-leaf parsley (from the garden)
And some oregano (from the garden)
A couple cloves of garlic, smashed and warmed in about half a cup or so...maybe less...extra virgin olive oil
Around a quarter cup or more of good aged parmigiano reggiano (okay I'm probably making a lot of spelling mistakes today - I don't care - I'm just happy to have time to type) cheese
About the same amount of walnuts
Some salt and pepper
A few drops of lime juice (it's the green theme going on)
And half an avocado - for creaminess and to continue the color scheme, apparently

Added some cubed cooked chicken to this just before serving over tortellini.

Yummy.

It's nice to be home on maternity leave....

Limoncello

The first time I ever had limoncello was in mid-March, 1998. It was a Friday.

Bill and I had just signed the paperwork for our little rented house in Oakland Beach - a section of Warwick, RI. The tiny place (two rooms - one upstairs, one downstairs, and a bathroom) was a converted summer cottage. It had a huge fenced-in back yard and a front porch that was, perhaps, the very best part of the entire property. We sat out there many an evening, weather permitting, with wine, cheese and crackers, or smoked bluefish and sour cream on Ritz crackers (really - it is one of the best flavor and texture combinations in the universe)...or coffee early in the morning after coming back from a quick boat trip out to haul up the lobster pots and cast for stripers...we watched the sunset down at one end of the street...or watched the cars zip down Oakland Beach avenue at the other end. We watched a pair of bluejays build their nest in our neithbors' eaves, and later, with binoculars, saw the baby birds before they grew up (too fast, as all babies do) and left home to begin their own adventures.

But all those front porch moments were in the future...at that moment, that March Friday, all we had were a set of keys and a few pieces of paper - and an empty little house.

And we were hungry. We got back in our car, after the leasing agent (the landlord's cousin) drove away, and headed to the end of our new street, took a left onto Oakland Beach Avenue and then another left onto West Shore Road.

There are several restaurants and bars along that section of West Shore Road...the Inn has a mix of basic American fare and some Italian pasta dishes - and a pretty good salad bar...the Backstop is kind of a biker bar, and we just weren't dressed right to fit in there...the Islander is a great Chinese restaurant, and there's another one further up that wasn't so good at first, but a few years later they renovated and hired some better cooks and things improved for them.

But we weren't in the mood for any of that.

We were in jeans and sweatshirts and sneakers (casual day Friday at work for both of us), and pizza seemed the right choice for the night. Up just past the Islander, on the other side of the street, is a restaurant called Nonna Cherubina. A white boxy looking building that was obviously a home converted into a restaurant. There is a big sign out front for oncoming traffic in either direction to read - the biggest letters spelled out PIZZA and underneath it said "and more." I think there's more on the sign...perhaps something about Northern Italian cuisine - all we saw at that moment was "pizza" so we pulled in there and opened the front door.

Linen, linen everywhere....we were so clearly underdressed - we almost turned around to go somewhere else...but too late - a tall, slender gentleman with a slight stoop and longish black hair, some of which was combed over a thinning area on top, a moustache, and a warm, friendly smile greeted us with a small nod of his head and led us to a small table for two.

I counted one time - there are eleven tables in this tiny restaurant. Three are in the smoking section. The walls and flat surfaces are decorated with photographs, candle sconces, plastic flowers, and mismatched pieces of china. The prevailing color is a pale, muted pink which, with the dim lighting, renders the small rooms cozy and intimate, no matter how many other people are there.

The tall man handed us menus and a wine list and left to get us water glasses and a small loaf of Italian bread in a basket - sliced, and very hot.

I don't remember what we had to drink that night - probably wine. We didn't order pizza. They have pizza on the menu, which is probably fantastic. But oddly enough that's the one thing we've never tried. And we've gone back plenty of times.

Their menu, which changes periodically, carries about 8 to 10 appetizers, a couple of salads, about half a dozen pizzas, and about half a dozen meat dishes, same number of seafood, same number of vegetarian, and about 8 pasta dishes. There are a few side dishes offered too. And later they tell you what the desserts are that day, or bring around the dessert cart.

I don't remember what we ordered, probably some kind of appetizer to split and then an entree each. A few minutes later the same tall man brought out a little dish of something - a little stew of some kind, perhaps - to have while the appetizer was prepared. They do this for everyone. Just a little taste of something. Here, try this and let me know what you think. An unexpected little gift of food.

The appetizer might have been something like this - a small piece of pizza dough, fried, with sliced prosciutto and provolone slices on top, and some baby greens on top of that, and a drizzle of olive oil over all of it.

Dinner might have been veal marsala for Bill and their homemade gnocchi for me.

Dessert? Tiramisu, if they were offering it that night, was probably what we would have picked to share.

And with dessert - limoncello.

Tiny little glasses, icy from hours in the freezer, filled halfway with an icy cold, syrupy, yellow liquid. Gratis. Another gift.

The tall man, we discovered over time, is Luigi. He and his wife, Stefania, take turns with the cooking and the serving, although on weekend nights they usually have a waiter or waitress on the floor and the two of them work the kitchen. Every year they go home to Italy for 3 to 4 weeks in January or February. There is a big sailboat on a trailer in their yard - I think it spent one summer in the water. Bill and Luigi usually talk boats every time we visit.

They are sweet, charming, welcoming people. Instead of feeling like we were a couple of stray mutts stumbling into the Westminster dog show that first night, we were made to feel like family. Long-lost family. We don't eat there as often as we used to, or as often as we'd like to - but whenever we do, we are long-lost family once again.

Back to the limencello. They make it themselves - grain alcohol, lemon rind, sugar and water. That's really all it is. You can use vodka instead of the grain. A little goes a long way. This is not something you do shots with. This - you sip. It is powerful, but it is refreshing and a lovely balance of tart and sweet. Grown-up lemonade, if you will. But again - you sip it. Goes well with any of the desserts....especially (just my opinion) the bittersweet chocolate and pear tart.

Over the years we've said we should try to make it. And we haven't. Bill's made gallons of beer, and some wine (from kits - he takes no credit for how they come out) - but not the limoncello.

Until now. I'm making it. I don't know why. Maybe the hint of spring in the air (before this week, when we had a couple of hints of winter as it reluctantly relinquishes control) - I don't know.

But I bought lemons last week - and limes - and so now I have three batches of potent citrus brewing on the top shelf of my pantry. I'm doing two different versions of the limoncello and one of lime. One of the lemon versons consists of the rind (none of the white pith - it is nothing but bitter) of 6 large lemons soaking for about 3 weeks in 4 cups of vodka. Later I will add a simple syrup - a mixture of sugar and water, cooked just to dissolve the sugar, and then cooled - and the mixture will sit for a month. Then it will be strained and bottled. I found the recipe in a gardeners' cookbook that I got as a wedding shower gift.

The other two batches are quicker. The lime version is an adaptation of the original limoncello recipe found here. Both recipes are similar - I think the main difference is that the recipe from the gardening cookbook uses fewer lemons per batch and therefore has to sit longer to develop the same flavor. Mario Batali's recipe is the quicker of the two. I just want to compare them, or maybe tinker around with them and come up with my own version.

Not that I'll be having any for a couple more months. But that's okay - they will keep.

I plan to keep most of the stash hidden, to be saved for gatherings of our friends, or special occasions....

But also I just want to be able to break it out on warm, lazy summer evenings when Bill and I are sitting out on our deck, after a dinner of freshly-caught fish of some kind...or steamers...or mussels...or lobster...and fresh vegetables from the garden, and maybe some good cheese and sliced bread, and the kids are in bed.

I want to feel a late day summer breeze on my face, maybe catch the perfume of sea air as well, and recapture some of our then to blend with our now.

One Springerle Recipe

This is not the handwritten recipe in the black ringbinder. I haven't attempted that one. I'm posting (for now) the recipe that we used two years ago, the time that I baked cookies with my mother-in-law. The recipe was in a 1996 copy of Yankee Magazine and was sent in by a Marian Tietz Anderson, of Fredonia, New York. At the end of the little article it says "The Yankee Cook Suggests Springerle molds from the House on the Hill" and gives an old address and phone number, and adds "It has a huge selection of deeply cut molds that make wonderfully detailed pictures."

So onto the recipe, courtesy of Marian Tietz Anderson, with notes from Elsa...

Springerle Cookies

Make these three weeks ahead if possible, then store airtight to mellow and soften.

anise seed
4 1/2 cups sifted flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
4 eggs
1 pound sifted confectioners' sugar (4 cups, per Elsa)
1 tablespoon grated lemon zest

Grease cookie sheets and sprinkle with anise seeds.
Sift together flour and baking powder. Set aside.
With an electric mixer, beat eggs until light; add sugar; beat until mixture makes a thick ribbon when dropped from a spoon.
Add lemon rind, then flour mixture.
Mix well and chill.

On lightly floured board, roll to 1/2-inch thickness.
Flour springerle molds and press firmly into dough.
Cut cookies apart.
Place 1/2 inch apart on cookie sheets and leave exposed to air overnight.
Bake the next morning in a 300 degree F oven, 20 to 25 minutes or so; do not let them get brown.

Yields about 3 dozen 2-inch cookies

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Elsa had written the following across the top of the page: "Comes out high & full if baked in round cake pans rather than cookie sheets." I think this is because the cookies were surrounded by the sides of the cake pan, concentrating the heat within that circle, which probably helped give the baking powder an extra bit of oomph to help leaven the cookies. Just a guess.

Springerle molds are sometimes single pieces of wood (or a resin/wood combination) with a sort of checkerboard arrangement of lots of smaller pictures. Each picture is meant to make a single cookie, so after you've imprinted the mold on the dough, you need to carefully cut these into the smaller cookies. For straight lines, a pizza wheel works very well, as long as you're careful and the wheel doesn't get away from you.

She also noted, with regard to the length of cooking time "20 min is good" - but that will really depend on your oven. Still - check them at 20. No one wants a browned springerle!! Trust me!!

I am going to make a batch with this recipe this year (to play it safe) and a batch from Elsa's ringbinder(to be bold and brave). I also have (somewhere) a recipe that my husband's cousin, Elsa's brother's daughter, had sent to me last Christmas. I can't remember if it's an adaptation of a family recipe or something she got somewhere else, or something she developed...apparently these come out lighter and a bit easier on the teeth. The airing out can result in a rather dry, hard cookie, and time will have the same effect. I don't mind - I like to gnaw on them, actually. You can also dunk them in your coffee. Or tea. Or milk.

Update, 11/24/03
Now that I've finally made them, here are a couple of tips...

Make sure you let the dough warm back up a bit after chilling before you attempt to roll it out. This is a bad habit of mine - I start trying to roll it too cold (I do this with pie dough too) and it inevitably cracks and is very frustrating to work with. Can't really give you a length of time, but try 10-15 minutes and then figure out what's best in your kitchen.

Also - when pressing out the molds...the dough, as you press (and be prepared to exert some pressure - this is a strong dough and will push back) needs somewhere to go. It will go up into the mold, which you want, and it will go out to the sides. I found out it works best if you can cut a piece of dough just about the size of the image you're pressing, press that lightly to the mold, and flip it over and lean on it (evenly, so it doesn't come out really detailed on one side and less so on the other) that should work. I've also seen instructions to put the dough on the mold and run your rolling pin over it. I have one really big mold and I'll probably do the rolling pin thing when I get to that one. I'll be making another batch next weekend....

White Lebkuchen

I believe the "white" simply refers to the glaze that tops these cookies...this recipe is copied directly from Elsa's black ringbinder, in her handwriting, with her notes, etc. I'll add my own notes at the end....

1 C almonds, ground
1/4 C cinnamon (scant)
1/2 C orange peel (candied) I cut these
1/2 C citron peel (candied) into small pcs.
2 tsp cloves
1/2 tsp baking soda
4 1/4 C flour - sifted
4 eggs
2 1/2 C sugar

Stir sugar & eggs until foamy (1 hour by hand, 15 min by mixer)

Sift flour, baking soda, cloves, cinnamon into sugar mixture, add orange, citron and almonds, alternating using flour last

Work on board to finish mixing

Let rest 1/2 hr.

Roll 1/8" for crisp or 1/4" for softer cookies

Cut and bake 300 degrees 15 minutes

Cool - glaze.

Glaze

1 3/4 C - 2C confectioners' sugar
4 T HOT water

Stir 10 minutes or until shiny

Make one batch at a time - dough dries out quickly

4 oz container of citron & orange peel = 1/2 C

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

To glaze them, I just spooned some of the glaze onto each cookie and swirled it around a bit with the back of the spoon. The glaze never covered the cookie completely, when my mother-in-law made them, so that is the look I go for, too.

Elsa always cut these out in circles, and she used a specific juice glass, which she kept (and I have) in the cardboard box that she kept the important cookie-making supplies. The rim of the juice glass is about 2" in diameter.

Think about that bit of direction - "one hour by hand" - yes, that's what she did before she had a mixer to do it for her.

By "work on board" she meant knead the dough a bit. Not too much - you don't want the cookies to become tough. But you'll need to put a bit of muscle into it. The dough is pretty stiff.

Yes - that's a quarter of a cup of cinnamon in the recipe.

Let me know if you have any questions! And no - I don't remember how many this recipe makes...

Cheese Fondue

When Bill and I were just starting to date, the first meal I cooked for him in my apartment was a simple cheese fondue. He had never had it before, and apparently he was just amazed by it. Again - it's very, very simple.

This is the way I make it. My mother used to make it occasionally, and I'm not sure where she got the original recipe...she used to make it with crabmeat too, but most canned crabmeat doesn't have enough flavor to compete with the cheese and the wine.

Anyway, here it is. You will need:

half a stick of butter
1/4 cup of flour
1 cup of dry white wine (and drink the rest with dinner)
2 1/2 cups of shredded sharp cheddar
1 can of crabmeat (optional...if you have the urge to buy a live crab or two and cook them and pick out the meat, it would probably be a whole lot better)

a loaf of crusty bread - a baguette, a loaf of Italian bread, a sourdough boule (did I spell that right? I should check, but my ice cream is melting and I don't feel like taking the time...), whatever you like....

Wrap the bread in foil and put in a 350 degree oven to warm it up. My mother used to cut it into chunks, but there's something fun about ripping it apart at the table, too...

In a heavy-duty saucepan, melt the butter add the flour, whisking constantly to remove the lumps.
Cook for a minute or two, whisking all the while so it doesn't stick and burn.
Pour in the wine and continue whisking until the mixture is smooth and starts to thicken slightly.
Add the cheese, and stir until it all melts.

Pour the mixture into a fondue pot and follow your manufacturer's instructions about lighting the flame below.

Light candles, pour the rest of the wine, and, using the fondue forks or skewers or your fingers, dunk chunks of bread into the fondue and - (careful! cheese is hot and will burn the roof of your mouth, which kind of detracts from the romance of it all) - enjoy.

You can try other kinds of cheese, or a combination of other cheeses...cheddar isn't traditional, but I like the sharpness.

Anyway - it's long been a favorite of ours...thought I'd share...hope you try it...hope you like it!

Lemon Sponge Pie

(from my old blog...)

My mother got this recipe from a friend of hers, and for years it's been my "birthday cake" of choice. Served chilled, with some fresh whipped cream (or not) it's perfect on a hot July day.

Here it is:

You'll need to have an unbaked 10" pie crust ready in a pie plate. Use your favorite pie crust recipe, or buy a pre-made one - they're in the freezer section, with the other dessert things. Keep it in the fridge until you're ready to pour the filling in.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.

You'll need:

3 T unsalted butter
1 1/4 C sugar
4 eggs, separated
3 T flour
a dash of salt
1 1/4 C milk
Grated rind of two lemons
1/3 C fresh lemon juice

Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Beat in the egg yolks, flour, salt, milk, lemon peel and juice. Set aside.

In separate, VERY CLEAN, dry bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff but not dried out. Fold those into the other mixture and pour into your pie shell.

Bake at 375 for 15 minutes.

Lower the oven temperature to 300 degrees and bake until golden on top, and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. This will be about 45 minutes or so, depending on your oven.

Let cool on a rack, and then put it in the fridge for a few hours or overnight. It can be eaten unchilled, but I think it's best cold. (Just my humble little opinion.)

And like I said earlier, it's nice with some fresh whipped cream, or you can sprinkle the top with confectioners' sugar.

One year my mother made a lime sponge pie, and that was very good too.

Enjoy!

Variation on a Theme - Shrimp and Fettucine

(from my old blog...)

I've got this idea of making a pesto with the leaves from our nasturtium plants. The flowers and leaves are edible, and both are kind of peppery. No, not kind of, they are peppery.

Anyway, tonight's dinner was sort of an easing into that idea. I figured I'd cut the nasturtiom peppery-ness with the traditional fresh, bright flavor of basil. So, out to the garden with my scissors....I snipped a bunch of basil and several big nasturtium leaves. Brought them inside, rinsed them off, and proceeded to make this dinner:

Couple of handfuls of frozen shrimp, thawed and peeled. (Save the shells in the freezer to make a seafood stock some time.)
Olive oil
Butter
Salt
Red pepper flakes
About 10 cloves of garlic, peeled, smashed, and minced
A handful of shelled walnuts, finely chopped
About...um...6 big nasturtium leaves, and about 30-40 leaves of fresh basil, assorted sizes
A slug of white wine (mine was a pinot grigio/pinot bianco blend - Luna di Luna, because that is what we had in the fridge)
Freshly grated Parmeggiano-Reggiano cheese to taste
A pound of whole wheat fettucine

Okay.

Start water boiling in a pot.

While that's working, put about 2 T of butter and about the same amount of olive oil in a pan and warm it to melt the butter. Add the minced garlic to soften.

While the garlic is softening, chop the walnuts. Add them to the garlic, stir, and increase the flame a tiny bit.

Chiffonade the nasturtium and basil leaves: Lay the leaves (do one kind at a time) on top of each other, roll tightly, and then finely slice. They'll be long, thin green strips. Mix the basil and nasturtium leaves together and set aside.

When the water in the pot comes to a boil, throw in some salt and then put in the fettucine.

While the pasta cooks, heat the oil/butter/garlic/walnut mixture so it's bubbling, throw in a slug of wine (probably about 3/4 of a cup) and cook to reduce and burn off some/most/all of the alcohol.

When the liquid has reduced and the mixture doesn't smell so obviously of wine, add your shrimp and coat with the mixture in the pan. Cook slowly, stirring and tossing the shrimp, until they are almost completely cooked. Add the nasturtium and basil, some salt, some red pepper flakes, toss to combine, reduce flame to the lowest setting, and cover with a lid.

Drain the pasta (when it's cooked to your taste).

Uncover the shrimp mixture, grate the cheese onto it, and serve over the pasta.

It was pretty good.

Next time, I'm making a straight pesto with mostly the nasturtiums...just to see how that is.

I'll let you know.

Grilled Shrimp

(from my old blog...)

This is for my cousin, Susan, who asked for a copy of this recipe. It's one of the dishes Bill cooked for me on my birthday...It's from "Betty Crocker's Mexican Made Easy" - which, despite the "made easy" aspect of it, is actually a pretty good, authentic-ish Mexican cookbook.

Anyway - here it is:

1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/4 cup tequila or lime juice
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
2 T lime juice
1 T ground red chilis
1/2 t salt
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 red bell pepper, finely chopped
24 large raw shrimp, peeled and deveined (leave tails intact)

Mix all ingredients except shrimp in shallow glass or plastic dish; stir in shrimp. Cover and refrigerate 1 hour.

Remove shrimp from marinade; reserve marinade. Thread 4 shrimp on each of 6 8-inch metal skewers. Grill over medium coals, turning once, until pink, 2 to 3 minutes on each side.

Heat marinade to boiling in nonaluminum saucepan; reduce heat to low. Simmer uncovered until bell pepper is tender, about 5 minutes. Serve with shrimp.

Serves 6.

(or two gluttons...)

Two Scallop Recipes

(from my old blog...)

I made both of these for the clambake. Did each with about a pound and a half of fresh sea scallops....

A note about searing - scallops cook rather quickly, so at most these should be on each side about two-three minutes, depending on the individual size of each scallop. Overcooked seafood is a sin.

Sea Scallops with Lime

You'll need:

A pound and a half of sea scallops
A lime (all the juice and about a teaspoon of zest)
Some oil
Some fresh chives for garnish (optional)
A pan
A pair of tongs to turn the scallops over when you sear them

First, heat some oil in a pan
Place the scallops in the oil, not too close together, and sear, first on one end, then the other. (Scallops are shaped like little cylinders, if they're not smushed.)

When you finish the second sear, pour in the lime juice and swirl it around in the pan. Stir the scallops around a bit in the lime juice as it warms up, then remove scallops, place in a bowl, pour the pan juice over them, and sprinkle with the lime zest and the chopped chives.

We served these as appetizers at the clambake, but they'd also be nice divided between two hungry people, with some rice on the side and a green salad and the cold beverage of your choice.

Blackened Sea Scallops With Sauteed Bell Peppers

This recipe was adapted from a recipe for bluefish in the book Miss Ruby's American Cooking by Ruby Adams Bronz. I was going to link to it, but apparently it's now out of print. The bluefish recipe is called "Provincetown Bluefish" - and it's very good also*. But for another party we had once, I thought I'd try it using scallops instead, and it was very popular. I've lessened the amount of heat per scallop - but if you like a lot of heat, blacken both "ends" of the scallop instead of only one as I do in the recipe.

Here goes -

A pound and a half of scallops
Two green bell peppers and two red bell peppers, seeded, julienned, and minced.
1 T paprika
1 T black pepper
1 t cayenne pepper
1/2 t dried thyme
8 T olive oil (half for the peppers, half for the scallops)
8 anchovy fillets, drained and chopped
4 t balsamic vinegar

Okay.

First, combine the paprika, black and cayenne peppers, and the dried thyme. Set aside.

Pour 4 T oil in a large skillet, and sautee the bell peppers, stirring occasionally, until soft. Stir in the chopped anchovy and cook until it dissolves. Shut off the heat, and stir in the balsamic vinegar.

In another pan, heat the remaining oil. Tap one end of each scallop into the paprika/peppers/thyme mixture, and set, that side down, in the hot oil. Sear on one side, then turn over and sear on the other.

Arrange the bell pepper mixture in a large bowl, Then arrange the scallops, paprika/pepper/thyme side up, on top of them. I garnished this with a couple of dried red chili peppers, just to let people know they were spicy.

Again, we served these as appetizers, but they'd make a nice meal too.

* To make the bluefish recipe, just julienne the bell peppers, don't mince them. And substitute 2 1-lb bluefish fillets, skinned, for the scallops.

Basil and Nasturtium Pesto Crostini with Fresh Mozzarella and Candied Cherry Tomatoes

(from my old blog...)

Or maybe they're Bruschetta. They're sort of both and neither. Feel free to correct me.

Anyway. Nasturtiums are edible flowering plants that seem pretty easy to grow, based on our experience. I knew the flowers were edible (my mother used to grow them) but I didn't know the leaves were edible until this year.

Candied Cherry Tomatoes

A pint or so of cherry tomatoes
Olive oil
Kosher salt
Ground black pepper

Preheat the oven to 350.

Slice the cherry tomatoes in half, pole to pole (stem end to the opposite end), and arrange, face-up, in a baking dish.

Drizzle generously with olive oil and sprinkle generously with salt and pepper.

Bake until the tomatoes look kind of shrunken, about 20-30 minutes, with maybe a couple of the smaller tomatoes starting to turn dark brown at the edges. The aroma will be wonderful.

Remove the pan from the oven and let the tomatoes cool in the pan. If you make these ahead of time, store the tomatoes and oil in a sealed container in the fridge. Let them come to room temp before using.

The Crostini or Bruschetta Things

3 long baguettes (yes, baguette is a French, not an Italian, word. So it's a multi-cultural appetizer.)
Olive oil
About 10-12 nice-sized cloves of garlic, peeled and smashed, more if desired

Place garlic in a small saucepan. Cover with a very generous amount of olive oil - a cup and a half to two cups is good. Place pan on a burner on low heat. You just want to warm the oil and coax the flavor from the garlic.

While the oil and garlic are warming, preheat the oven to 375. (Yes, this is really fun to do in the middle of a muggy summer!)

Slice a baguette, on an angle, about 1/4" to 1/3" thick. Arrange slices on baking sheets. Place baking sheets on racks in the oven, and bake, about 6 minutes, until the bottom side of the bread is starting to brown.

Flip all the sliced pieces over and bake again for another 6 minutes.

Remove these from the oven and flip slices over again. Brush with the garlic oil and pop them back in the oven for a couple more minutes, just to dry the bread out.

Remove from the oven and cool. Store in sealed container.

Basil and Nasturtium Pesto

To make the pesto (and this is very general - I didn't measure anything as I was making it. Just taste as you go and adjust as you wish) you'll need the following:

A BIG bunch of fresh basil. We grow basil in our garden, but I'd used a bunch of it earlier and wasn't sure I'd have enough, so I bought a bunch at the grocery store. And I mean a BIG bunch. This was wrapped in cellophane like a generous bouquet of flowers, if that gives you any indication of how much there was. Oh - here's another - the leaves, after I removed them all from the stems, pretty near filled a large salad spinner basket. There you go! That's how much you'll need.

About 20 good-sized nasturtium leaves. More if you want more peppery-ness in the pesto, less if you don't. None at all if you just want a standard pesto. (I also used a few mustard green leaves, just for fun.)

Olive oil
Pine nuts or walnuts (we had walnuts, so that's what I used) to taste (I used about half a cup
Grated parmesan cheese (about 3/4 of a cup)
Fresh garlic to taste (I used about 6 cloves)
Salt and pepper to taste

Pick all the leaves and rinse off any dirt. Pat them dry on paper towels and place in the bowl of a large food processor, a handful or two at a time. Throw in some of the walnuts and garlic to weigh down the leaves, and process. Drizzle in some olive oil if the mixture seems dry and isn't pureeing nicely. Add more leaves, walnuts, garlic, and oil, and process again. Keep repeating until everything but the cheese, salt, and peper are in the processor, and puree until smoothe. (You can leave it chunky, but for my purposes I wanted it more like a paste. Chunky is nice on pasta.)

Pour green mixture into a bowl, and stir in the cheese. Add salt and pepper to taste.

To store, drizzle on just enough olive oil to cover the top, then seal the bowl with plastic wrap and put in the fridge. Bring to room temp before using. The olive oil on top keeps oxygen away and keeps the green from going brown.

~ Pesto also freezes nicely in ice cube trays. You still want to cover each compartment with a little drizzle of olive oil.

To Assemble It All

You'll need:

The baguette slices
The pesto
The candied tomatoes
Two balls of fresh mozzarella, each about the size of a tennis ball

Preheat the oven to 400 again.

Slice each ball of mozzarella in half, then put each half cut-side down on your cutting board and slice pieces about 1/4" thick, going the short way across. Set these aside.

Spread a generous teaspoonful or two of pesto on the oiled surface of a baguette slice. Top with one cherry tomato (cut side up) at one end of the baguette surface and a slice of mozzarella chese on the over half, with a bit of the cheese slightly overlapping the tomato. Place on a baking sheet. Repeat until the sheet is full, and bake about 5 minutes, until the cheese is starting to melt slightly. Serve.

These were pretty yummy. The nasturtiums and mustard greens give the basil a peppery kick, which is balanced nicely by the sweetness of the cherry tomato and the creamy texture and mild flavor of the cheese.

Hope you like them.

Baby Buffalo Ball Sandwiches

(from my old blog...)

We served these at the clambake too...

You will need:

My recipe for Buffalo Balls
Little sandwich rolls of some kind
Crumbled blue cheese

When you make the balls, form them smaller than you ordinarily would - about the size of a malted milk ball. Smaller than a walnut (in the shell) but larger than a hazelnut. Cute and little.

Brown these and then put them all in a big pot with the buffalo sauce and simmer slowly until the meatballs are cooked through.

To assemble - place 2-3 meatballs in a roll and top with some of the blue cheese crumbles.

Green Spaghetti

(from my old blog...)

When I was a kid my mother would make spaghetti with just butter and chopped parsley sometimes. She (and we) called it "green spaghetti."

I'm not a huge fan of parsley, but we are growing it anyway. (Just like I'm not a huge fan of broccoli, but we grew some of that too this year...thank you, John.)

Anyway, the parsley is doing very well, so I suggested making green spaghetti tonight. We have left over whole wheat spaghetti in the fridge, so it would take very little time to prepare. Bill went out and harvested parsley...and some basil...some chives...and the last little florets of broccoli. He roughly chopped all the green stuff, and threw in some chopped olives and some capers....(hmmm...this is no longer the original green spaghetti...and I had very little to do with the creation of this dish as well...oh well...I was giving Alex a bath.)

I heated some olive oil in a pan, tossed in all the chopped ingredients, and just basically warmed them slowly in the oil. Sprinkled that with some salt and pepper, and warmed up the spaghetti in a ziploc bag in the microwave. There was a little bit of spaghetti sauce on the spaghetti, too, so there was that little tomato element thrown into the final dish. When the spaghetti was warmed up I put that in the pot with the greens and oil, tossed them all together, and we served it with some grated parmigan. Alex shoved handfuls of it into his mouth. He likes everything. He eats his veggies without a complaint. (He likes sauteed chicken livers too, with a little onion, served over some couscous mixed with diced tomato, basil and olive oil...honest!)

Anyway, dinner was very nice, very quick, very simple. I love having the garden. Bill is the gardener, as he has more time in the summer than I do...and he likes to do it. He is, in this respect, his mother's son. Which works for me. I'm looking forward to later this summer, when the "bigger" things start coming in...eggplant, tomatoes, squash, cucumbers...different kinds of salad greens...herbs...the peas are just about finished, now that the hot weather has arrived...oh, and we have asparagus...horseradish...raspberry plants that were Bill's mom's...not a bad little farm this year.

I look forward to fresh tomatoes, sliced, with slices of fresh mozzarella, mixed with fresh basil and olive oil and a little salt....or fresh eggplant and zucchini on the grill...a thick sliced tomato sandwich with mayo and a pinch of salt. That is the flavor of summer to me.

Creme Brulee

(from my old blog...)

Tuesday night when everyone was over I made Creme Brulee, which is an egg custard slow-baked in a water bath, then chilled, then sprinkled with granulated sugar, and then the sugar is caramelized either under a broiler or with some kind of blow torch. After it melts and browns, the sugar hardens, so when you dip your spoon into the dessert, you hit a crackly layer of sugar and then the rich, creamy texture of the custard. It's a nice contrast.

The recipe I used is from my Baking & Pastry Formulas book, which was one of my two "bibles" when I was a baking and pastry arts degree candidate at Johnson & Wales University a couple of years ago. I didn't finish, which bothers me if I think about it too long. But I learned a lot while I was there, so it was not wasted time.

Here is the recipe for 12 servings of Creme Brulee (which translates as "Burnt Cream"):

(Just about all the measuring was done by weight, not cups, so it helps if you have a kitchen scale. If you don't have one, send me an email and I'll figure out the conversions for you)

You need:

12 4-ounce ramekins
2 13 x 9 metal cake pans
A fine-mesh strainer
A couple of bowls
A whisk

9 ounces of egg yolks
4 1/2 ounces of granulated sugar
vanilla extract to taste (or any other flavor you might want to use. This is the basic recipe.)
3 pounds of heavy cream

Preheat your oven to 325 degrees F.

Whisk the egg yolks and sugar together.

Whisk in the vanilla extract.

Whisk in the heavy cream.

Strain the mixture; remove any foam on top.

Distribute the mixture evenly among the 12 ramekins.

Place the ramekins in the metal cake pans - 6 in each. Leave space in between each ramekin and the sides of the pans.

Pour some warm water into the pans, and then have more warm water ready to pour.

Place the pans on the center rack in your oven. Pour more water into each pan until the water comes about half-way up the sides of the ramekins.

Close the oven and bake until firm. And in this case, firm means "set" but not "hard as a rock." When you shake the ramekin (gently), there should be a little jello-like wiggle in the center.

The length of cooking time will depend on your oven. Check them at 30 minutes, and then about every 10 minutes or so after that. The nice thing about baking things this way is it's a slow, gentle process. The only way to overcook them is to completely forget about them for a few hours.

Anyway, when they are done, CAREFULLY take the pans out of the oven and set them down. I say CAREFULLY because the water in those pans is hot and if you aren't CAREFUL, the water could slosh out and splash you and that would hurt and might cause you to drop the pan, in which case all the rest of the water would splash everywhere...and worse still, there would be 6 shattered ramekins with custard splattered everywhere that you'd have to clean up and throw out. This stuff is too good to waste like that, so, like I said, BE CAREFUL.

Remove the ramekins from the water bath (or bain marie, to trot out my culinary French), and allow to cool. When cooled, put them in the fridge for at least 4 hours, or overnight if you have time, until thoroughly chilled.

Before serving, take them out of the fridge and sprinkle some granulated sugar on the surface of each custard.

Now there are, like I said, a couple ways you can brulee them. One way is to put them under the broiler in your oven. If you're doing it this way, fire up the broiler and put the top rack about 6 inches below the broiler. Place the ramekins on a cookie sheet and slide them under the flames. You might want to just do a few at a time. Keep an eye on them - this isn't a recipe for blackened custard. You want to caramelize the sugar, so you want to watch for an amber/brown color. The color probably won't be even - it may look kind of blotchy. That's okay. Take them out before they burn! Hurry!

OR, if you want to have fun and play with fire, get a blow torch (they make little hand-held ones you can buy) and carefully move the flame back and forth over the sugar until it melts and browns. Keep the flame moving - sugar will burn quickly. This doesn't really take very long, and it certainly impresses people if they've never seen it done before. Fun party trick.

A few moments later, the sugar on top will harden and, voila! You did it! Your friends will be impressed as anything - and it was so easy!!!!

Have fun!

Buffalo Balls

(from my old blog...)

As I think I mentioned in a previous post, on Sunday I went to visit my sister and her family, and my parents, while my husband taught some guys how to brew an all-grain batch of beer.

Saturday night I made these meatballs for them to have for lunch on Sunday. According to Bill, they were a huge hit. Here is what I did:

First, the meatball ingredients:

2 lbs ground beef
1 14 oz pkg of "Gimme Lean" sausage flavor (it's a meat substitute. Found, at least in my area, with things like tofu and the like in that section of the grocery store. There's also a ground beef flavor, but I wanted the flavor of sausage in addition to the ground beef. The other reason I like this stuff is that unlike real meat, it doesn't lose moisture. When you cook ground beef and spoon off the fat, the meat has a tendancy to be tough. The Gimme Lean products don't have any fat, so they stay moist. We use the ground beef variety for tacos.)
1 medium onion, minced
About 3/4 cup bread crumbs, and enough milk to moisten the crumbs
An egg
Salt and pepper

And you will also need:

A 14 oz can of beef broth
2 cups of any red hot sauce you like
1 stick of unsalted butter

Shredded cheddar cheese, blue cheese, torpedo rolls - to serve

I think that's everything. I didn't write it down at the time...

Anyway, put all the meatball ingredients together in a big bowl and, with your hands, squish it all together til it's pretty well combined. Form into balls somewhere between ping pong and golf in size, then flatten slightly. (I was making them at night, and I wanted them to cook faster. You don't really have to flatten them if you don't want to.)

When they're all shaped, heat a skillet and brown the meatballs on both sides (or all sides, if not flattened) but don't worry about cooking through - they'll do that later. Hold browned meatballs on another plate until all are browned. Put the browned meatballs back in the pan and add the can of beef broth. Cover and cook on low heat until the meatballs are cooked through. Shouldn't take very long.

In a separate pan, melt the butter and whisk in the red hot sauce. (* Must give credit here to Paula Deen, who has a show on the food network. This is the sauce from her recipe for Buffalo Wings, which are very good.

Anyway, pour the sauce in with the meatballs, once they're cooked, and heat through. Serve on rolls with shredded cheddar or crumbled blue cheese.

Or, if you're making these ahead as I did, when the meatballs are cooked through, remove them from the pan to cool, and whisk the buffalo sauce into the remaining broth in the pan. When it's all cooled, put the meatballs and sauce into the crock pot insert, cover, and refrigerate. I started the crock pot going the next morning around 7:00 and the guys at lunch around noon or one, I think. And there were even a few left over for me!
Posted by: Jayne / 1:16 PM

Trout for Lunch

(from my old blog...)

Pretty simple - all I did was this:

Heat some oil in a pan - about a quarter of an inch or so.

While it is warming up, mix about two parts flour to one part cornmeal in a bowl. Add some salt and pepper. If you want to season it more than this, go right ahead.

Pat the filets dry with some paper towel. Dredge each filet in the flour mixture and place on a clean, dry plate.

When the oil is hot (it sizzles immediately when you flick some water into it), place a few filets in the pan. Watch out for the splattering.

When the edges start to look opaque, turn the filets over and finish cooking. They should be a pale golden brown on each side.

Remove the filets and place on paper towels on another plate. Keep the plate and fish warm in your oven (on very low heat - about 200 degrees. You don't want to dry out the fish.)

Repeat the frying with the rest of the fish.

Serve with tartar sauce, lemon wedges, hot sauce, or whatever you like on your fish.

You can also serve other things with this, like rice or fries or potato salad, but there's also something kind of cool and fun about just having the fish by itself. Especially when it was caught just a few hours earlier.

We gave Alex some little bits of fish (double-checking for bones, first) and he loves it. He had already had his lunch, his fruit for dessert, a teething cookie, and a few Cheerios. But after the first little taste of fish, he wanted more. And more. He liked it with tartar sauce, and also with the lemon. He can try hot sauce a bit later on in his life.

Anyway - we had a very nice lunch. And there's more fish in the fridge

Whole Wheat Linguine with Leeks and Mushrooms

(from my old blog...)

I made this the other night...

Trimmed and chopped a couple of big leeks and let them sit in a bowl of cold water for a while to clean off any dirt.

Poured some olive oil and some butter in a pan and when the butter melted I added the leeks and also a package of sliced mushrooms. Covered the pan to sweat them a bit.

Filled a pot with water and started bringing that to a boil...

Took the cover off the leeks and mushrooms, added some salt and pepper and a sprinkling of flour (to thicken the juices, eventually) and poured some sherry into it. Cooked that for a little while, then added about 2 cups of chicken stock. Kept it bubbling.

When the water came to a boil, I added some salt and a package of whole wheat linguine. (You could use any shape pasta you like. I will just insist that you use whole wheat. It has a great texture and flavor.)

When the liquid had reduced somewhat in the pan of leeks and mushrooms, I lowered the heat just to keep it at a very low simmer. When the pasta was done, I drizzled a VERY little bit of cream into the leeks and mushroom mixture.

Drained the pasta, put some in a couple of bowls for Bill and I, and spooned some of the leek/mushroom mixture over the top. Grated a little parmesan onto that, and ta-da - dinner.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

(from my old blog)

Yesterday I made a batch of chocolate chip cookies, at my husband's request. No nuts - just chocolate chips. I used the recipe from the back of a package of Ghiradelli semi-sweet chips, but I used both the remaining semi-sweet chips and a whole package of Ghiradelli's double chocolate chips too. (There weren't a lot of the semi-sweet ones - about a quarter of a package.) Anyway, I made them very small - definitely just a teaspoonful per cookie - and they are nice, bite-sized cookies that dare you to stop once you've begun.

Here is the recipe:

Ghiradelli Chocolate Chip Cookies

2 1/4 cups unsifted flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup butter, softened (the recipe didn't say it, but this should be unsalted butter)
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar, packed
2 tsp vanilla
2 large eggs
1 cup walnuts (I didn't use them)
1 bag (12 oz) Ghiradelli Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

Stir flour w/baking soda and salt, set aside. (Use a whisk - it'll incorporate everything together better.)

In large bowl, beat butter with sugar and brown sugar at medium speed until creamy and lightened in color (about 4 minutes).

Add vanilla and eggs, one at a time, mix on low speed until incorporated. (Scrape the bowl down after each egg is incorporated.)

Gradually blend dry mixture into creamed mixture. (I added it in 3 batches, scraping down the bowl after each addition.)

Stir in nuts and chocolate chips (or just chips, if that's what you're doing).

Drop by tablespoon onto ungreased baking sheets. (I used teaspoons, and dropped them onto parchment-lined pans. Clean up is quicker, and you can re-use the parchment a few times.)

Bake for 9-11 minutes or until golden brown. (I baked for 5 minutes on the lower rack, then turned the pan around and moved it to the upper rack, and popped in the next sheet of cookies. Baked another 5 minutes, took the ones on the top rack out, turned and moved the pan on the lower rack to the higher rack, and popped in the next pan. It worked well.)

I don't know how many it made - but I know they won't last the week.

Next time, though, I'm putting nuts in. I was also thinking of using 3 sizes of chips, just for kicks.

Chicken and Gravy and Mashed Potatoes

(from my old blog...)

Chicken and Gravy and Mashed Potatoes

Monday night I wanted comfort food for dinner. So this is what I did:

Cut up a bunch of red-skinned new potatoes, put them in a pot with cold water to cover, and boiled them until they were fork tender.

While that was in the works, I fried 2 strips of bacon in a pan until crisp. Removed them from the pan and sauteed a small, chopped onion for a few minutes. To that I added some baby portobello mushroom caps, covered everything and cooked until the mushrooms had browned and released their liquid. I took out the onions and mushroms and seared some sliced boneless, skinless chicken breast pieces on both sides. Removed them and put in some butter and flour and chicken stock, whisked it all together til smooth, then put back the chicken, onions and mushrooms, some salt and pepper, and cooked until the chicken was cooked through and the gravey thickened.

When the potatoes were done I drained them, put them in the bowl of my Kitchenaid mixer, added butter, milk, salt, peper and a bit of the bacon, chopped up. Beat that all together (but left some lumps.)

I reheated some baby asparagus from Sunday's lunch, and served it up for my husband and myself. (I'd been feeding my son while I was leaping around making dinner). It was very good.

Last night I pureed a bit of the potatoes, chicken, a mushroom, and some gravy and fed it to my son. He liked it too.
Posted by: Jayne / 6:18 AM

Shrimp Recipe

(from my old blog...)

Last night I was going to make shrimp fajitas, but I didn't have flour tortillas and I didn't feel like going to the store on my lunch break or on the way home, so this is what I did instead:

Smeared 1/3 of a can of tomato paste in the bottom of a baking dish (not a 13 x 9 - it's smaller, maybe 11 x 7 or so).

On top of that I put chunks of cream cheese - used a whole 8 ounce block. (No, this isn't diet food.)

Peeled and deveigned some shrimp. (There were 28 left in the bag of frozen, so that's what I used) Put them in a bowl, and sprinkled some "Essence of Emeril" on top. (Yes, really, I have a bottle of it. It's handy.)

Mixed together a can of black beans (rinsed) with a package of frozen corn, a chopped onion, the rest of the can of tomato paste whisked into a cup of chicken stock, salt and pepper, and a bit of lemon zest (about a teaspoon). (I used lemon zest because I had some left from the dessert I made on Sunday, and because I didn't realize I still had some limes. I would have used the juice from half a lime otherwise.)

One by one, I heated up small corn (white corn in this case) tortillas and when they were warm and softened, I put two shrimp lengthwise at one end and rolled them up in the tortilla. Like a flauta, I think. Anyway, placed these, as I made them, down the center of the baking dish. They fit perfectly - I made 14 of them, there were 10 down the center, and 2 along each side. Nice and snug.

Poured the beans and corn mixture over the top, covered it with foil, and baked for about an hour at 350 F. Actually, to be honest, I started it at 325 but it wasn't coming along fast enough (trying to time it for when my husband got home from work at 7), so about halfway through I bumped it to 375. So, averaging it out, I'm saying 350. But it also depends on the individual oven, so it should be checked periodically.

Served with a dollop of sour cream and some cubed avocado. We also sprinkled some green Tabasco on it. I would have made it spicier, but I'm trying to share more of our "people food" with Alex, and I don't want to frighten him with chili peppers just yet.

My husband loved it. I thought it was good. But then I am always more critical of my cooking than he is. I think it could have used more liquid - maybe half a cup more of the chicken stock.

P.S. Tonight I pureed some of the leftovers and fed that to Alex for dinner. He loved it too.

Except for the avocado.
Posted by: Jayne / 8:38 PM