Category — Recipes

Ingredients to make Banana-Nutella-Granola Cookies!

If you have been to Paris, then you have probably had a Nutella crepe and possibly of Banana-Nutella crepe.  And when you arrived home after your amazing vacation you most likely went to the store, got yourself a little jar of Nutella, and came home and made yourself some crepes!  I know that after every trip I make to Paris, one of the first things I want to make are crepes, it keeps the illusion that you haven’t left the City of Light alive in your heart.  It’s been a year and 3 months since I was last there – when Dave, Connor, and I went over to join Marissa for a wonderful 2-week vacation.  Needless to say, we had to bring her home, kicking and screaming, after her magical “semester abroad!”   Plus my mentor and dear friend, Barbara Pool Fenzl, owner of Les Gourmettes Cooking School, just left this very day for France, so in her honor, I made no crepes – since there is no one here to eat them with me 🙁   But instead cookies.  As we all know,  you can freeze cookies and share them with loved ones when they come home to visit from college!

NOTE: In the “ingredients” photo at the top, you’ll notice that the bananas are quite brown.  This is because once bananas become ripe on my counter, and I don’t have the time to bake, I place them in either the refrigerator or the freezer. Either option turns the skin as brown as brown can be.  If refrigerated, use within a few days, and if frozen, best within a few weeks.

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I promised myself that I would post before 10 PM today, and it’s a promise I am keeping! I need sleep! I have been obsessed, which is what happens when I get into something new. If I love a book, I don’t put it down until it’s finished.

For example- a few summers ago, when the 5^th Harry Potter book was released on a Friday morning, I bought two copies (well, we always buy 2 copies, one for each of my kids’ libraries). One copy went with Dave and the kids on a plane that afternoon back to Illinois to see his family. The other was with me, in bed, which I read straight through, no eating, no sleeping, no anything (except toilet breaks!) until the book was finished. Mind you this is an 800+ page book.

Then on Saturday morning, when I’d finished it, I got dressed and shopped for that next week’s classes, came home, and went to bed until the next morning. But that’s how it is and that’s how it’s been with these posts too. I’m going to have to get on a more daylight schedule! Most of today’s daylight has been spent putting up links to sites I wanted to share with you. Most are cooking sites or blogs, and some of the others are friends’ sites. Then there are sites that are just filled with lovely and artistic photos, many Paris inspired!

photo from The Paris Apartment

Like this gorgeous photo (I have died and gone to heaven!) from The Paris Apartment! So check them out and enjoy! The following recipe was partially inspired by a sandwich I had this summer in California. It was with grilled chicken and had a tasty and unique corn-onion mayonnaise. I haven’t been able to get that mayo out of my mind since, and every now and then when friends ask things like “is mayo gluten-free” or “how do I make my own” I end up thinking back to it. I picked up skirt steak with the intention of making fajitas but then found in the newly arrived Sept issue of Bon Appetit a sandwich recipe using…Grilled Corn Mayonnaise! Funny how things like this show up in different places around the same time… so now here is my version…

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I’m wondering how long this new feeling I’m experiencing will last? “What feeling?” you ask – Guilt, that’s what! It’s 11:15 PM and although I’ve worked diligently on the blog off and on all day (setting up links and learning new things- thanks, as always, to Cyndi)

I have yet to post anything for the day. I don’t bother much with the emotion of guilt, I don’t find it to be very productive, so this is a new feeling for me! Honestly, I really am having a great time and am so excited about my 9-day-old blog in fact my horoscope – I’m a Scorpio – has been crazy dead on. Today’s for example:

“You’re feeling wonderful. Exhilarated, excited and anxious for all new things to happen. Well here’s a newsflash: just thinking about change – the way you are – means it’s already started. Everything begins as a thought – as an idea – right? So now your only job is to get the show on the road with some action. Map out a battle plan on paper and get it started.”

WOW! Anyhow besides slaving away on the “inner workings” of this site, I was also messing with my cable/TiVo connection for a larger part of the morning… sometimes all this techno stuff just really ticks me off. After doing back-bends, restarts, consulting TiVo.com, and finally having to call them twice, it all came down to unplugging it all (TV, TiVo box, cable box, and VCR) waiting 10 seconds, and plugging it all back in so it could all reboot and be happy again. That’s all it took! And honestly, that is what I usually think of first, WTH?!

The day wasn’t a total loss though, because I enjoyed a wonderful “end of the summer ladies-who-lunch” date at Lon’s with Barbara Fenzl and Kim Howard, my “Cooking Partners in Crime.”  So hurray for that! Anyhow, since we only had leftover salmon, peppers, and pesto available for dinner, I will just have to put up a cocktail recipe for today!

My BFFs, Peggy and Anne, and I discovered this great drink at Ocean Prime Restaurant back in the late summer of ’08, on a girl’s night out. I served it at a Christmas party in mid-December and then in January, I shared it with my other BFFs, Jen and Jeff – who live in Illinois. We hadn’t had it again until this month, twice now! First with Peggy and Anne a couple of weeks ago and then again last night with the Froggatt’s at our Basil & Bay dinner. I know it sounds like a strange combo, but after serving it to more than about 3 dozen different people, I haven’t found one person who does not absolutely love it- so don’t knock it till you try it!

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Dinner has been decided upon for this lovely Sunday evening. It’s only supposed to get up to 99 degrees today! It was not decided by me, but instead by my garden. I went out this morning, while it was only 84 degrees, and noticed that if I didn’t do something about the luscious basil going wild and the very tall bay laurel tree in my garden that they would take it over.

I’m thinking about an appetizer of flatbread with basil in the dough, basil oil, and roasted tomatoes with – wait for it… basil pesto! And maybe salmon grilled on top of the bay leaves and lemon slices and also some Yukon gold potatoes braised in stock and more bay leaves.

I’ve had crème brûlée scented with fresh bay leaves, fresh from a bay tree, before, and although it was delicious, I really don’t want to stand over the hot stove in the summer “stirring constantly” (two of my least favorite words!) a steaming custard. After painting that little picture for myself, the crème brûlée is definitely OUT! So something else may be with the bay leaves for dessert – any thoughts out there? I am off to the movies…

……I am thankful no one came up with any dessert ideas because I was actually too busy to even think about dessert today! Dave and I saw Inglorious Basterds early this afternoon and LOVED it! This is from a girl who has to put her hands over her eyes during the icky parts! And there were plenty of icky parts, but I still want to go back and see it again! I’m not a huge Quentin Tarantino fan, I liked Kill Bill(s) and Pulp Fiction but this movie was just so cool, and Brad Pitt… love him even more than before, if that is possible. What about Christoph Waltz? If he isn’t nominated for an Oscar, there is something wrong in the movie biz! Enough about that, this is a “cooking/food blog” so on to the rest of that part of the day…

After the movie and a Costco run, I arrived home at about 3:00 and began making the Grand Basil-Bay Dinner. Good friends, Chris and Kathy Froggatt were to arrive at 6:00, with nice wines in hand! It was a great evening with good friends. They recounted their wonderful vacation cruise to Monaco, Italy, and Greece (ready to go tomorrow after hearing about it all!)

Amidst all the catching up and garden touring, I totally burned (we’ll call it charred!) the flatbread while grilling it. But we enjoyed it anyway because the Bay Leaf Roasted Tomatoes that topped it was still tasty and the Baileyana Chardonnay that Chris brought somehow washed away all thoughts of those nasty carcinogens we were ingesting.

Dinner itself went off much better. We had a fabulous Chasseur Pinot Noir from Sonoma and the bay laurel flavors present in the fish and potatoes were truly sublime. Kathy is not a salmon fan, so I did a “personal-size” piece of halibut for her. I think the individual size is a really nice presentation for a more formal dinner. A bit more work to individually wrap each piece of fish, but it’ll cook faster and it does look fancy!

One last note about the salmon. It is drizzled with olive oil, and any fruity olive oil will do, but I adore our own local Queen Creek Olive Mill Meyer Lemon Olive Oil. It is available locally at A.J.’s or can be ordered online HERE.

And if you are a neighbor or live close enough to drop by, just give me a call if you want to make any of the dishes with the fresh bay leaves. You can have all you’ll need, free for the taking. The salmon recipe uses way too many leaves to purchase at the store in those tiny herb packages when you can actually find it. So don’t be shy, the bay tree grows better when it is pruned, so you’ll be doing me a favor… really!

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I woke up this morning and just can’t believe all the work “The Amazing” Cyndi has done on my site!  It is already looking more wonderful than I could have imagined!  Thank you, dear friend!

Marissa went back to Tucson yesterday, so on Thursday night, we had a quick and easy dinner consisting of Stuffed Pork Chops, Parmesan Asparagus, and Caprese Salad. The thing I really love about this pork chop recipe is that it is so quick and versatile.  I keep boneless chops and some sort of sausage in my freezer at all times.  If it’s not hot Italian sausage, then it’s the sweet variety or chorizo.  Onions and garlic are always on hand.  And if I don’t have fennel, then celery or carrots are great substitutes. No fresh rosemary?  No problem, use dried, just use half as much, as the dried herbs are about twice as potent as fresh …as long as it hasn’t been in your cupboard for the last dozen years!

Dried spices and herbs do not spoil, but they do lose their strength.  A lot of cookbook writers and chefs tell you to purge your pantry once an herb or spice is about 6 months old. But the spice companies, including McCormick and Penzeys, say differently. They tell you to keep and use the spices as long as they appear to have flavor.  And hey, they are the ones that would be raking in even more big bucks if we followed those writers and chefs, so I go along with them!  It certainly helps if you store them correctly though.  Store in an airtight container, in a cool, dry place.  And most of us are guilty of storing them too close to the oven or stovetop… that is not a “cool” place!  Spices retain their potency longer than you’d think — as long as 4 years for whole spices, 2 to 3 years for ground spices, and 1 to 3 years for herbs.  Whole spices such as peppercorns, cinnamon sticks, cloves, cumin, and cardamon hold their flavor for many years. Whenever possible, whole spices are the way to go, and toasting those spices in a dry skillet will bring out the oils and therefore bring out even more and better flavor.  Invest $20 or so in an extra electric coffee grinder, dedicated just for spices, cause “cumin flavored coffee” – eeww!.  Don’t want the flavor of peppercorns in with your cinnamon?  In between spices, “clean” the grinder by grinding either dry white rice or a slice of fresh bread, then just toss out the rice/bread. Either one will take away the flavor of the precious spice.

Herbs lose their flavor faster than spices. Dried herbs that have no color and no or very little smell when crumbled in the palm of your hand are not going to do your dish any favors, but if they still have fragrance when crumbled in your hand, use them, taste the dish and add more, if needed. For a list of herbs and spices, you should have on hand, go to Pantry Stocking on the “Tips” page or to the July 9, 2009 post.

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Connor is safe and sound and cool in beautiful Flagstaff and I am trying to settle back into my new routine of blogging. As promised here are the pizza recipes from Connor’s “Last Supper” (I know, how dramatic can a mom be?!?) You’ll notice that the dough/crust recipe is the same for all pizzas… that is because this is my favorite and most reliable crust recipe. There are different techniques for each baking, but any and all can be done whichever way you prefer. On Monday night, I baked all pizzas on a stone in a 500-degree oven. When I feel like going outside (I did not on Monday, since it was sweltering outside!) then I prefer to use the grill, directions for grilling pizza can be found in the Barbecue Chicken Pizza recipe below. But until the evenings cool off, you won’t find me out there unless the pool is also involved!

Connor’s California Club Pizza

Dough
1 tablespoon or 1 package dry yeast
2 cups flour, divided
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon milk
1/2 teaspoon salt

2 cups sliced rotisserie chicken breast
2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
1/3 cup cooked thick bacon, crumbled-about 8 slices
3 cups chopped iceberg lettuce
1 cup chopped romaine lettuce
4 tablespoons mayonnaise
4 large tomatoes, two diced, the other two each sliced into 8 slices
1 avocado, sliced into 16 slices

Dough: In the large bowl of a standing mixer, combine 1/4 cup of lukewarm water, the yeast, and 1/4 cup of flour. Let stand for 20 minutes, this is called the sponge.

Add the remaining 1 3/4 cups flour, 1/2 cup lukewarm water, olive oil, milk, and salt, and mix thoroughly. Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and knead until smooth, elastic, and a little bit tacky to the touch, about 8 minutes.

Place the dough in an oiled bowl and turn the dough over to cover with oil. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap…

and let rise in a warm place until doubled in volume, about 1 hour.

Place a pizza stone in your oven and preheat to 500 degrees.

Divide the dough in half. Form each half into a 10-inch circle on a lightly floured surface.
Place one round of dough onto a pizza pan or a pizza peel that will be used to slide the dough onto the hot pizza stone. Be sure to dust the pizza peel liberally with flour or cornmeal so that the assembled pizza will slide off easily. Bake for 7 to 8 minutes or until crust just begins to brown. Repeat with the remaining half of the dough.

Brush the pizza crust with olive oil. Sprinkle 1 cup of shredded mozzarella on the crust, followed by 1/2 of the crumbled bacon and 1/2 of the chicken. Return to oven until cheese is melted, about 3 minutes. Repeat with remaining crust.

Assemble: Combine the iceberg lettuce with romaine lettuce in a large bowl. Stir in mayonnaise and mix until lettuce is well coated, then gently stir in the diced tomatoes.

Cut each pizza into 8 slices. Top each slice of pizza with a slice of tomato and 1 slice of avocado. Top each with lettuce mixture and serve immediately.

Makes 2 pizzas, 8 slices each

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