Category — Recipes

To say that I am loving my LetterFolk letter board is an understatement! Inspiring and fun, that’s what it is!

Anyhow, along with the Spring Vegetable Flower Tart and Fresh Spring Pea Hummus for Easter brunch, I served ham, Pomegranate Molasses Lamb Chops, and Roasted Brussels Sprouts.

The ham was embarrassingly easy.

I stirred a cup of brown sugar and a can of pineapple in a slow cooker, added the ham, turned it on LOW for 2 hours, pulled it out, and slapped it on a platter. Connor, my dad, and Dave raved about it. Who knew!?!

For the Brussels sprouts, when you trim off the ends and cut them in half, you’ll end up with a pile of loose leaves. Don’t throw them out!

Set aside and after the sprouts are blanched, blanch and refresh the leaves, dry and use them in a salad for another meal. Yum!

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I may have gone a little overboard with the flowers this Easter.

It’s hard not to. Tulips. Daffodils. Freesia. Hydrangea. Gerber Daisy. Ranunculus. It’s impossible to pick just one, or two for that matter!

The funny thing is that I didn’t use one of them on my Easter tablescape. They were all too fragrant and floral scents often interfere with the food.

But they were enjoyed throughout the rest of the house.

All of the flowers came from Trader Joe’s, along with the fresh English spring peas that I used to make this appetizer.

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This is the extraordinarily lovely vegetable tart I made for our Easter brunch. I saw it on one of Martha Stewart’s social media pages several weeks ago and fell in love. I have to admit, I did run into a few challenges making it though.

I don’t think I’ve mentioned this here yet, but my house is on the market. I packed up boxes full of household items and accessories back in January to make it “show-ready” before we listed it.

My garage has stacks upon stacks and row after row of boxes filled with items from every room in the house. When potential buyers look at your house, they open closets and cupboards, so those had to be pared down too.

I tried to be careful about what I packed away, but inevitably, I have times when what I need is somewhere unreachable in the garage. In the case of this tart, it was the mandolin and the pie weights I needed but were out of reach. It’s frustrating, but luckily, I was able to adapt.

Instead of my mandolin, I used a vegetable peeler for the vegetables and instead of professional pie weights for the blind baking of the tart shell, I went old school and used rice (dry beans work well too).

I’m going to be 100% honest here and tell you that this recipe is A WHOLE LOT of work! To be doubly honest, I’m not sure that it was worth it, I didn’t find it flavorful enough. That being said, please don’t let those statements stop you from reading on! There is a solution to at least half of that proclamation!

I did modify the original recipe a bit; I added nutmeg to the filling and sprinkled Parmesan on top. I also found that the squash did not need to be blanched, only the carrots needed that treatment to roll easily. And I was lucky and found extra fancy tri-colored carrots at Trader Joe’s. They added vibrant extra pops of color.

Everyone enjoyed the tart and thought it was quite good, but for all the time and effort, I didn’t think it was good enough.

Before we ate it, I posted a photo of it on my Facebook page. My friend, Sue, left a comment saying, “My daughter posted the recipe for the tart to my timeline earlier this week for us to make! You’ll have to let us know how it tastes!!“

After I tasted it, I went back to reply to Sue with my thoughts, but before I did, I checked out her timeline and found that the recipe her daughter posted was not the same recipe as the Martha Stewart recipe that I used. After reading over Sue’s recipe, I can say that I will make the tart again, but next time I’ll be using the recipe posted on her page, it sounds so much more flavorful! Instead of only eggs, cream, and Parmesan for the filling and pie dough for the crust, hers added ricotta, mozzarella, and oregano for the filling and used puff pastry for the crust. YUM! Here is the link for that recipe.

Oh, and if you’ve ever had difficulty removing the rim from a tart pan and wondered if there is a trick to it… there is! Set the baked tart on a bowl and let the rim just fall right off.  Easy as pie.

There is one fact that is not contested – this is one gorgeous tart!

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If you haven’t dyed your Easter eggs yet, there is still time. Time to do something more creative than the dye kits from the grocery store.

Many years ago, when my now 20-something kids were in grade school and we had our own egg-laying chickens, I tried dyeing our eggs with natural ingredients for Easter.

I used onion skins, beets, coffee, Red-Zinger tea bags, spinach, turmeric, chili powder, and red cabbage. The only ones I remember turning out as beautiful as the ones I’d seen Martha Stewart do were the eggs dyed with red cabbage. Maybe that is because instead of getting the red or purple eggs one would expect, the cabbage eggs come out a lovely shade of robin’s egg blue.

I was inspired to make these gold speckled robin’s eggs when I thought back on those red cabbage blue eggs combined with the memory of the Robin’s Nest Cake I made last Easter.

This is a “Do as I say – Not as I do” sort of recipe. I didn’t use enough cabbage and water to completely cover the eggs.

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On Sunday morning, I pulled a package of pork tenderloin from the freezer to thaw for dinner. A few hours later I heard from Connor and he decided to stay home instead of coming over as he usually does for Sunday dinner and to do his laundry. I think he’d had enough of me after our trip to Austin.

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Sweet Zoey and me testing the appetizer I made for Tram and Steve’s St. Patrick’s Day/Going-Away dinner party last Friday night. Zoey and Zak were not fans of the Guinness Fondue, but they did love all the dippers for it.

One of the dippers is blanched Brussels sprouts.

To blanch them; trim the ends and cut them in half. Bring a pot of water to a boil and add 1 tablespoon of salt. Add sprouts and boil for 3 or 4 minutes, or until a paring knife pierces a sprout easily. Drain and then shock in ice water. Drain on paper towels and leave at room temperature until serving time. Note: When you’re trimming and halving the sprouts, you’ll end up with a pile of single leaves. I blanched the leaves first for about 30 seconds, shocked and drained them, and used them in a salad the next day. Zero waste!

Also a note about another dipper – the pretzel roll cubes. I didn’t have time to get to Costco and buy a package of their pretzel rolls, which are the best around, in my opinion. Instead, I bought the Trader Joe’s pretzel rolls. You know I love my Trader Joe’s, but there is no comparison between the two rolls. The Costco variety is saltier and way more pretzel-y. Lesson learned.

One last note before the recipe. I know, I’ve got so much to say about this easy-breezy appetizer! A third and very important dipper is apple cubes. In my rush to assemble and set out the appetizer when I arrived at Tram’s, I forgot to add the apple cubes to the serving tray. I felt like something was missing, but I brushed it off. Finally, a guest asked, “What is this container of apple cubes for?” Darn it! Don’t forget to put them out because they add a much-needed light and bright color to the tray of dippers and are a delicious fresh addition to the overall taste choices. *If you look closely in the left upper corner of the photo above, you’ll see them in their storage container with the purple trimmed lid. Oh well.

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On Friday night, Tram and Steve had a St. Patrick’s Day dinner party that was also a going-away party for a special Irish chef we all know and love. Chef Michael Cairns and his beautiful wife, Dar, are moving to Napa, California today. You will now be able to find Michael at the gorgeous Silverado Resort. The last time I was at The Silverado was in 1990-something for the Napa County Wine Auction. Knowing that Michael is there makes me want to go back. The 2017 Auction is on the first weekend in June… very tempting!

Michael and Steve cooked up a delicious traditional St. Patrick’s Day meal; corned beef, cabbage & carrots, soda bread, Shepard’s pie, roasted potatoes, boiled potatoes, and colcannon (which is another potato dish – you know, for good measure!)

I contributed my favorite things to bring to parties, a cocktail, and an appetizer. Today you’ll find the cocktail recipe and tomorrow I’ll post the appetizer.

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I had my dear friends, Lori and Jonathan Vento, over for dinner. Not this last weekend, because they are back in Chicago, freezing their little toes off! It was actually last month, while they were here visiting and Lori’s mom was along for the trip.

For our first course, I decided to combine two of my favorite vegetables. I love butternut squash soup and I equally adore red bell pepper soup. They are both bright and beautiful and doubly so when in the same bowl.

Off-topic… It’s been a very long time since I’ve posted any adorable photos of my exceedingly adorable 2-year-old cats, Bombay and Bailey. While scrolling back through my photos to find the pictures to accompany this recipe, I found a few cat pics. Honestly, I found a ton of cat pics, I am constantly taking pictures of them. I only chose a few to share though. They are at the bottom of the post … after the recipe … if adorable cat photos are your thing!

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Happy St. Patrick’s Day. Faith and Begorrah!

I’ve mentioned several times before that I am a founding member of the Phoenix chapter of Les Dames d’ Escoffier. Our March meeting was an appetizer potluck and I made these fun and savory pimento cheese lollypops to share.

No matter how cute and tasty they may have been, they could never compete with the out-of-this-world Fried Chicken that Charleen Badman, chef/owner, of the ever wonderful FnB, brought to the meeting! So darn good! But since I don’t have the recipe for Charleen’s chicken, the recipe for the lollypops will have to suffice.

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I made this slow cooker stew for a girl’s night with my BFF’s, Peggy and Anne, a month ago, when it wasn’t 93 degrees outside like it is right now! We enjoyed the fireplaces, each other’s company, the Jacuzzi, and the correct seasonal weather.

What the heck?!? Here it is mid-March and already in the ’90s in Arizona! I just heard my upstairs A/C turn on again! I hate it! I know that the mid-west and east are suffering through a blizzard and freezing their behinds off. And as ridiculous as that is, this heat is just as bad. It’s expected to be 96 degrees this Saturday! What happened to spring? Who do we send our complaints to? Rant over. For today anyhow.

I used chicken tenders, which meant that I needed to remove the tendon from each.

It’s easy to do. Use a fingernail to hold on to the end of the tendon. Then slide a paring knife to scrape it off. See, easy.

I thought the stew had just the right amount of heat. Anne found it too spicy for her taste. Even Peggy thought it was a little too hot. If you like spicy, keep the recipe as is.

For a milder stew, simply eliminate the jalapeños.

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