Apricot Berry Cobbler
My friend Suzanne has been coming over a lot recently, helping my mother and me raid my next door neighbor Pat's Blenheim apricot tree (with Pat's blessing of course). Suzanne has 3 growing teenagers to feed, so she can put those apricots to work! This week she walked me through her steps of making a fruit cobbler, using blackberries and Pat's apricots. What I love about cobbler recipes is that they are so forgiving. If they end up runny, that's okay because you aren't trying to contain them in a pie shell. If they're a little too tart, just serve them with some vanilla ice cream. Cobblers travel well for potlucks and you just serve them with a spoon. Best of all, they're a wonderful way to enjoy the fruit of the season.
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Blueberry Frozen Yogurt
"I found my thrill, on Blueberry Hill..." While I'm pretty sure this song isn't about blueberries, every time I hear it all that comes to mind is a huge mound of them waiting for me to dig in. (Like Rock Candy Mountain, but made of blueberries.) During the summer when they're in season, I can't get enough of them. I'll buy baskets of blueberries just for me to eat, all by myself. No guilt. No justification needed (though if you do need a reason, they're great for your brain and are considered a superfood). Half a basket gets dumped into the morning's cereal, the rest nibbled throughout the day. We keep bags of frozen blueberries around for pancakes or smoothies; fresh ones are usually just eaten straight. With this blueberry frozen yogurt recipe, you can use either fresh or frozen blueberries, though you might want to lean to the frozen as you are going to freeze them anyway, and the frozen berries are usually cheaper. The tartness of the yogurt seems to just intensify the flavor of the blueberries, and a little cinnamon adds a touch of spice.
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Easy Grilled Salmon
Well, summer has finally come to Sacramento. After weeks of remarkably pleasant 80-degree weather, the hundreds have arrived. Yesterday 108°F. Today, 104°F. And when the mercury goes up, the grill comes out. Who wants to heat up the kitchen when the AC is barely hanging in there? My friend Suzanne cooks outdoors on her grill all summer long. A few days ago we got together to cook some salmon, and she showed me her favorite method of grilling salmon, quick and easy. There are lots of marinades you can use with salmon; I've included four here. Suzanne usually just uses a simple soy sauce and minced garlic marinade. I tend to get a little fancier with the addition of mirin rice wine, ginger, and sugar.
Do you have a favorite way to prepare grilled salmon? A favorite salmon marinade? If so, please let us know about it in the comments.
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Novella Carpenter - Farm City
Move over Martha. There's a new high priestess of growing your own food in town, and her name is Novella Carpenter. Who needs a palatial estate in suburban New York when you have a run-down apartment in the middle of a city with an empty lot behind you? If you have ever read Michael Pollan's seminal Omnivore's Dilemma
and wondered if maybe you too could raise chickens (and perhaps kill them for dinner), take a look at Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer
by Novella Carpenter, a former student of Pollan's who set up her own urban farm on a gritty dead-end street in Oakland.
I first met Novella Carpenter at the Taste3 conference in Napa where she gave a rousing and hilarious talk and slide show about her urban farm adventures. Clearly, this is a woman obsessed. (At Taste 3 Michael Ruhlman introduced her as insane; after reading her book I would have to agree.) Not content to just raise her own chickens, keep bees, and garden in her limited urban space, she moved on to ducks, geese, turkeys, rabbits, and even the more challenging, pigs. Who the heck raises two red Duroc pigs in a postage stamp-sized backyard in the city? They may be cute to start, but as Novella and her boyfriend were soon to find out, they have voracious appetites and they quickly grow very, very big.
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Rhubarb Crumble
When my father was a kid growing up in Minnesota, in the summer he used to love to chew on rhubarb that grew like a weed around there, RAW. That's right. Raw. (The stalks, not the leaves which are poisonous.) Have you ever tried biting into a piece of raw rhubarb stalk? I dare you. It's like a hundred times more sour than a lemon (okay maybe a little exaggeration here). It's screaming tart. It's "what was I thinking?" tart. Anyway, rhubarb is not safe around this house. The refrigerator half life for rhubarb is a couple hours at best. This last bunch we put to work into a lovely rhubarb crumble, based on a recipe dad found in Oprah magazine (yes, I had to get over the shock of that too, my dad, reading Oprah? then again she does have good recipes). Taking a tip from The Flavor Bible, I added a touch of cardamom to the vanilla and rhubarb in the filling, rhubarb+cardamom+vanilla being one of those match-made-in-heaven flavor combinations.
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Salmon Macaroni Salad
I distinctly remember the tall cans of dark pink salmon that used to be in our pantry when I was a kid. Although we could any time open a can of tuna or sardines and eat to our hearts content without permission, the canned salmon was off limits. Although the excuse my dad gave was, "it's special" (followed by "keep your hands off"), I think the real reason was that he loved the stuff and always wanted to make sure there was a can or two in the pantry when he wanted it. Nothing lasted that long in the pantry of a family with six kids.
One of my favorite things to do with canned salmon is to make a simple salmon macaroni salad with it, a riff off our family favorite tuna macaroni salad. You can choose to add sliced lettuce (iceberg works best) to the salad, but it works best as is, without lettuce, if you are planning to bring it to a picnic or have it last for leftovers.
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Introducing Good Bite
For the last few months, I and several other food bloggers have been working away on a nifty video project which launched today, Good Bite, produced by Deca TV, the same folks who are behind Momversation. The idea is simple. Just get a bunch of passionate food bloggers to talk about, well, FOOD, cookware, recipes, and cooking. It's sort of a no-brainer. Get any of us together and that's all we talk about anyway. Then, have talented professional chefs cook the food we talk about, and prepare the foods with how-to videos in a gorgeous studio kitchen. The idea is "Delicious Made Easy", making good cooking accessible to all.
I'm absolutely tickled to be talking food and recipes with some of my favorite food bloggers on the planet. The blogger team includes:
Shauna and Daniel Ahern, glutenfreegirl.com
Matt Armendariz, mattbites.com
Diane Cu and Todd Porter, whiteonricecouple.com
Jaden Hair, steamykitchen.com
Jeanne Kelley, jeannekelleykitchen.com
David Lebovitz, davidlebovitz.com
Catherine McCord, weelicious.com
Deb Perelman, smittenkitchen.com
Julie Van Rosendaal, dinnerwithjulie.com
(And me) Elise Bauer, simplyrecipes.com
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Beef Wellington
A few months ago my father got an inkling to make Beef Wellington, beef tenderloin smothered with mushroom duxelles, wrapped in puff pastry and baked. Who knows where he got the idea, maybe just curiosity. Beef Wellington is one of those dishes that was a lot more popular 40 years ago than it is now. But once my dad decides he wants to make something, come hell or high water, it will be made. It also helps that Chef Gordon Ramsey has a video online on how to make his version of Beef Wellington, using Parma ham wrapped around the fillet instead of the more traditional pâté de foie gras. So, we recently set out to make it, dad channelling Chef Ramsey, albeit without the yelling and swearing (though I'm guessing that if dad thought he could get away with acting like Chef Ramsey around the rest of us, he would). It's actually a lot easier to make than it looks, assuming you are using ready-made puff pastry, and the result is fantastic. A great idea for a father's day dinner for the beef-loving dads out there.
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Quesadilla Pie
In our house, quesadillas are the ultimate quick comfort food. If you aren't familiar with quesadillas, think Mexican version of a grilled cheese sandwich—toasted flour tortillas with melty cheese filling. I am the quesadilla queen (at least in my own mind), having held that title since college where I regularly cooked up massive quesadillas on burrito sized tortillas with tons of add-ins for myself and friends. So when a friend recently mentioned the idea of a quesadilla pie, I didn't even wait for the recipe, I knew what to do. The two basic ingredients of a quesadilla are cheese (queso is cheese in Spanish) and tortillas, either flour or corn, though usually in the U.S. quesadillas are made with flour tortillas. My version of a quesadilla pie is a casserole made in a pie dish with stacked flour tortillas and layers of cheesy filling, baked until browned and crispy. The beauty of quesadilla pie is that it's a great way to use up leftovers and odds and ends. The essentials are the tortillas and the cheese; after that it's up to you as to the variety and type of filling you want. Black beans are good, as are onions, chicken, tomatoes, mushrooms, or summer squash. All can be layered in with the cheese. Add as much chile as you want for heat and flavor.
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Apple Walnut Gorgonzola Turnovers
Yes yes I know it's June and it's not apple season here yet, but we make cooked apples every year and freeze them, we grow our own walnuts and thyme, and this was just plain good, so there. Remarkably it is the middle of June in Sacramento and we haven't had a day over 90 degrees in weeks, in fact, it's barely been getting up to the 80s. So, the oven is still in use. Ever have one ingredient that you have left over from something so you devise an entire recipe around it? I had some gorgonzola cheese begging to be eaten, some puff pastry in the freezer, and my mother's book club potluck event at our house coming up. Apples and walnuts we always have on hand. Apples, walnuts, gorgonzola, thyme, and honey make up the filling of these mini-turnovers and let me tell you, this is a great combination. Put the filling on a pizza, keep the apples fresh and make a gorgonzola version of Waldorf salad, or place it on a flour tortilla and roll it up and eat it as a wrap, whatever you do these ingredients belong together. Big hit at the book club too, nary a turnover was left.
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Cherry Clafouti
Guest author Garrett McCord made this cherry clafouti for my mother and me using freshly picked cherries from our neighbor Pat's tree. So good! And incredibly easy. ~Elise
I've been making clafoutis for years now and it's become a regular spring and summer dessert staple. The reason being is during these seasons I often find myself with too many cherries, blackberries, or Italian plums around on the verge of turning bad on me which is where the clafoutis comes in. Since it requires only a small amount of the most basic baking ingredients I can whip it up in a flash, use the neglected fruit, and impress the friends I feed it to. ("Oh this?! It's just a simple French clafoutis I bammed out. Nothing fancy.")
There are dozens of different clafoutis recipes, each unique to their owner and this particular one is my own. I find it has just the right texture between custard and cake. A smidge of brown sugar gives it a slightly darker flavor, and a small smattering of slivered almonds along with splash of Amaretto give the clafoutis a certain je ne sais quoi. If you're a fan of desserts with little work and a lot of payoff, then clafoutis is the way to go.
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Circassian Chicken
Please welcome guest author Hank Shaw of Hunter Angler Gardener Cook who shares one of his favorite chicken salads with us. ~Elise
Not sure where I first heard of this variant on chicken salad, but I’ve been making it for years. Presumably it originated in the Caucasus Mountains, which is where the Circassians live. I’ve net yet met a Circassian, although I suspect they may be something like an Armenian. Or not. Who knows? What I do know is that there are plenty of recipes for this dish out there, but what ties them all together are walnuts, garlic, paprika and poached chicken or pheasant.
I’ve tended to make this with pheasant, but a good chicken breast is just as good. Try to use an older bird, like a stewing hen or rooster. If none are available, use a roasting chicken of about 3-5 pounds, not the smaller fryers. The reason is because this is a bold salad, and I think young birds lack the flavor to stand up to it.
This recipe is a great way to get away from typical mayo-based chicken salads, and is wonderful either as a sandwich, or simply served with crusty bread and a pickle or two. Once made, it keeps well in the fridge for at least 3-4 days.
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Quick and Easy White Bean Salad
My mother is a genius. She throws together the most simple of ingredients, and they are so good that I have to get up in the middle of a meal to write everything down, for in her words, "if you like it, ask me now what I did because in an hour I won't remember." What I love about this white bean salad creation of hers is that it is so dead easy, and it's good protein too. It would make an excellent picnic salad because you can make it a day ahead; the extra time just gives the flavors more time to sink into the beans. It can also be put together at the last minute with basic pantry items. If you have fresh herbs available, you can use those, if not, dry herbs de provence work well too.
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Breaded and Baked Chicken Drumsticks
What's there not to love about chicken drumsticks? They're dark meat (more flavor), relatively inexpensive (certainly compared to boneless skinless breasts), they cook up quickly (half an hour in the oven), you can save the leftover bones for making stock, they're kid-friendly (have you ever met a kid who didn't like drumsticks?), and they even come with built-in nifty handles (so you can eat like King Henry VIII).
There are many ways to do breaded and baked drumsticks (see list of recipes from other bloggers at the bottom of this recipe). This particular recipe uses a mayonnaise and mustard mixture as a first coating, then some breadcrumbs with chives for the breadcrumb coating. You could just as easily use a beaten egg for the first coat (you need something for the breadcrumbs to adhere to), and a mixture of breadcrumbs, panko, grated Parmesan, lemon zest, tarragon, or thyme for the bread crumb coating. You can also brown the drumsticks first on the stovetop and then transfer the pan to the oven (helps to use a cast iron pan if doing it this way).
Do you have a favorite way to prepare breaded drumsticks? A favorite breadcrumb coating combination? If so, please let us know about it in the comments.
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Gingersnap Cookies
Updated, from the recipe archive, a favorite first posted in 2004. ~Elise
My mother doesn't bake. She's a great cook, but she avoids recipes and baking usually entails rather particular recipes, so she leaves the baking to my father and me. She also has a well developed sweet tooth, so when she has a hankering for a baked good she drops oh so many not-so-subtle hints about what would be really wonderful for dad or me to make. Her most requested cookie, amongst our vast repertoire of cookies, is this one, the ultra-thin gingersnap. Thin and crisp, the cookie practically melts in your mouth. Once you have one, it is almost impossible to stop eating them. The original recipe was passed along from food blogger to food blogger years ago by a woman who has since stopped blogging. She claimed to have gotten the recipe from Chez Panisse, when she asked for it while interviewing for a job. The two keys to this recipe I've found are 1) slicing the frozen cookie dough as thin as possible, the thinner the cookie, the crispier it will be, and 2) including the 1/8 of a teaspoon of ground black pepper that the recipe calls for. Black pepper is an odd ingredient to add to a cookie, but you'll just have to take it on faith that it works in this recipe. Unless you have an aversion to black pepper, be sure to include it.
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