Posts from — December 2014

Let’s say that you want to make little tea sandwiches for a Holiday Ladies Luncheon or Open House.

You buy a few bunches of radishes for the tea sandwiches. You cut off the tops, and the radish leaves, and you toss them in the trash or the compost.

Stop right there! Don’t throw them out! Make a delicious radish leaf soup instead!

This is a recipe that I made for my series of cooking classes at Les Gourmettes Cooking School and shows the good old Irish way of making the most of everything.

Be sure to wash the radish leaves well. Really really well! Radishes tend to have quite a bit of sand and dirt.

Do ahead and spin dry, line a plastic bag with paper towels and store the radish leaves in the crisper for up to 3 days.

[Read more →]

Sorry, no new recipe today. I did not cook over the weekend.

I spent Saturday trimming the house. Along the way, I found the photo album of Santa photos. Gotta love 1-year-old Marissa in this one!

[Read more →]

I actually received two, count ’em, not one but two emails asking for the Friday Funnies to come back! It’s only been two weeks since the last installment – and people are missing the laughs.

Your wish (es) is my command!

Are you laughing out loud (LOL!!!) yet?

The funny above and the funny below are my life!

Seriously! If Google could make that a reality, I’d get at least 8 hours added back into my life each and every week!

[Read more →]

Yesterday, I shared Barb’s Baked Eggs with you – today I’m giving you another of her fabulous recipes! Many thanks to Barbara Fenzl for allowing me to share her Les Gourmettes cooking class recipes with the masses.

Barb made shrimp sliders in class, I made shrimp burgers, with the same recipe and bigger buns, at home. My family went crazy for them!

One super-smart thing Barb does with her sliders – is she cuts out the center section of the King’s Hawaiian rolls, making them a more manageable size. When you eat it, you get less bun in each bite and more shrimp.

She saved all the center portions of the buns from all six of her classes and used them in her Thanksgiving stuffing. See, I told you she was super-smart!

King’s makes hamburger buns too, so I used the buns in place of the rolls, changing the sliders to burgers. Either way … Delish!

Note: I was feeding a crowd, so I doubled the recipe and made 12 burgers out of 2 pounds of shrimp. The recipe, as written, would have made 6 burgers and makes 12 sliders. Don’t let the photos vs. the recipe quantities confuse you.

[Read more →]

Barbara Fenzl made the most delicious egg dish for her classes at Les Gourmettes this semester. One of my favorite egg dishes ever – and I love eggs, so that’s saying something!

I made it on Thanksgiving morning. We usually don’t have a big breakfast on turkey day because we generally eat the big feast in the early afternoon. Dave and the kids have the tradition of taking a long hike in the morning to leave me doing what I do best – in peace and quiet. Since we weren’t planning to eat dinner until 6:00, I figured that a nice breakfast would be perfect when they returned from their hike.

Before I say that it was perfect, I will admit that I severely undercooked the eggs, so it wasn’t all that it should have been. I used a different type of dish to bake the eggs than Barb used, and it made a world of difference. My casserole was too deep and the eggs didn’t cook as well as they did in Barb’s shallow flat au gratin dish.

Barb found her individual porcelain au gratin/casserole dishes at Standard Restaurant Supply at 2922 E McDowell Road in Phoenix, they cost $2.50 each. And I found my Le Creuset mini cocottes, which are not great for this egg dish but are adorable and amazing for French onion soup – at Sur La Table. They cost considerably more but did not do the job this time!

One change I made in Barb’s recipe was to replace the 1/2 cup green chilies plus 1 cup water she used with 1 cup of the Trader Joe’s Hatch Valley Salsa (that I love so much) plus 1/2 water.

Since I’ve had it both ways, I can honestly say the difference in taste is minimal, so if you have the salsa on hand, use it!

An unplanned and unexpected side benefit for me was that I was only making 5 servings of this for breakfast but the sauce makes enough for 8 servings. I used the leftover green chile sauce in my Turkey Enchiladas with my leftover Thanksgiving bird!

So Good!!! This is going to be my go-to enchilada sauce from here on out. [Read more →]

Twenty-seven years ago today was one of the best days of my life. I was 27 years old and on that beautiful day, I gave birth to one of the loves of my life.

Today that beautiful baby girl turns 27 years old herself. The photo above was taken in Tucson this past Friday at the UA vs ASU Territorial Cup game. For obvious reasons, Marissa and her finance, Jeff, both UA alumni, were all smiles!

[Read more →]