Here is the salad I made at the Valley Dish show yesterday. I created it especially for Tram after I was on the last time and made crisp mozzarella slices to go with a risotto dish. She’d mentioned that she loved the crisp warm cheese and I asked if she’d had warm goat cheese done the same way. She said that she had and would love to learn how to make it, this is how this salad came to be. I’m sure most of you have had something similar while dining out.  It is easy and delicious to re-create at home. Eliminate the shredded chicken to make a lovely vegetarian main-course salad. Here is THE LINK to the intro for the segment I was on, the salad and pudding making are not up, so this is just a bit of a tease.

Tip: One of the best tips around; use dental floss to slice the goat cheese. It makes a perfectly clean cut, something a knife just can not do!

[Read more →]

You know that saying, right? It means you measure any wood you are working with twice to make absolutely sure that your measurement is correct because you only get one chance to cut it right. That is how I feel about greasing a pan when baking. I am not a huge fan of baking or making desserts. Too many things can go wrong, at least for me they seem to.

So the one thing I try to get right is to get the dessert out of the pan in one piece.  Easier than it sounds unless you use parchment paper. Whenever I make a cake or quick bread, I always (even when I forget to put it down on a recipe) grease the pan, line the bottom of the pan with parchment, and then grease the parchment. Works every time, as you’ll see in the pictures below.

I’ll be on Channel 12 NBC Valley Dish live today at 3:30, making a wonderful winter salad, in case you want to watch. I’ll post a link to the taped show along with the salad recipe tomorrow. AND… a very happy birthday to my sweet Jennifer! I adore you! xoxo

[Read more →]

For 22 years we have adhered to a strict rule in our house at this time of year. No holiday decorations are allowed on December 1st. That means Thanksgiving stuff needs to be taken down and put away and the Christmas stuff must be left unbothered until at least December 2nd. Hey, that’s today! The reason for the rule is simple – December 1st is Marissa’s birthday and that day needs to be all about her – not about the two major holidays that surround her special day.  Over the years, the rule has been slightly modified, and Christmas lights on the outside of the house became permitted. And this year, the rule wasn’t so much modified as actually broken – just a little! I have a TV shoot here this morning and it is going to feature me and my kitchen Christmas tree. Hence, the rule was broken when I put up that little tree yesterday – sorry baby girl, we’ll go back to being rule sticklers next year!

[Read more →]

Did you know that 23 is a prime number, meaning that it is a natural number that has exactly two distinct natural number divisors: 1 and itself?  

There are 25 prime numbers between 1 and 100. They are: 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29, 31, 37, 41, 43, 47, 53, 59, 61, 67, 71, 73, 79, 83, 89 and 97. And strangely enough, the current ages of three out of the four people in our family are prime – weird! Dave is 53, Connor is 19, and… TODAY, Marissa is 23!

[Read more →]

Picture by Marissa, read the info at the bottom of the post!

Not that kind of housekeeping! I’m not Martha Stewart, I don’t give a darn how you fold your sheets and I certainly hope you do NOT iron them! No, I’m talking about some minor “blog housekeeping” – Firstly, thank you to each and every one of you who have already commented in the last 24 hours, trying to help me reach my goal of 1027 comments by December 31, 2010. We are already up to 994 – fabulous! And somehow, by some wonderful miracle, the comments actually outweighed the blog spam today!

Secondly, for those of you who may have missed it or who live out of the Phoenix area, here is THE LINK to the S’Mores Party clip from yesterday’s Valley Dish. Great fun, too bad we were missing Connor, although I’m sure he was staying warm up in beautiful Flagstaff that Friday night. OK, housekeeping finished – on to today’s recipe.

[Read more →]

Everyone should set goals for themselves. Most people do so at the beginning of a new year. Today I am setting a goal for my blog. It is a short-term goal that is to be accomplished by the end of this year, and I need YOUR help to achieve it!

[Read more →]

Here is the second recipe promised from the Black Friday Cocktail Party. It would make a great addition to any Christmas buffet too, just play up the red and green a little more, and it’ll fit right in. Enjoy!

[Read more →]

There were about 25 lovely ladies at my BFCP last night, none of whom actually went shopping earlier in the day. A few did admit to cyber-shopping, but no one went near the malls… smart friends, have I!  

Below is the light menu I served and while typing it up I realized that it is basically a vegetarian menu, even though none of the attendees are vegetarians. You can get away with this when it’s an all-girls group, but don’t try it when men are involved!

I say “basically vegetarian” because my shooters used chicken stock, but one can easily substitute vegetable broth. And luckily, everyone loves cheese, because just about every recipe has it!

The first three dishes have already been posted here and you can access them by just clicking on the desired recipe name. The final two are from a wonderful cookbook called The Big Book of Appetizers by  Meredith Deeds and Carla Snyder. Meredith taught classes last week at Les Gourmettes Cooking School and these were two of the delicious recipes she demonstrated. Not only was the food great, but Meredith was a wonderful and entertaining teacher. I highly recommend the book, check it out on Amazon by clicking on the title above. With Meredith’s permission, I am posting the recipe for the tart today and the dip will be up tomorrow. Bonus: There is a special “Black” playlist to go along with the menu at the bottom of this post.

Black Friday Cocktail Party Menu

FOOD
Hot Feta and Tomato Spread with Pita Chips
Edamame Hummus with Crudités
Potato, Parsnip, Pear, and Parmesan Shooters
Blue Cheese Marinated Mushrooms
Rustic Goat Cheese Tart with Caramelized Balsamic Onions
Feta Cheese, Roasted Red Pepper, and Pine Nut Dip

BEVERAGES
Splits of Freixenet
Red and White Wine
Martinelli’s Sparkling Cider

[Read more →]

Who in the world would have a party the day after Thanksgiving, coming off of a cooking marathon? Me! Crazy, I know, but I am still really looking forward to seeing my friends at an impromptu get-together before the holiday rush. In fact, it’s sort of a kick-off to the madness of the Holiday Season, called a Black Friday Cocktail Party.

I’m making about half dozen appetizers and serving darling little splits of Freixenet Cordon Negro; the brut champagne in the little black bottles. Here is one of the dishes we’ll be slurping on, I’ll post more recipes and pictures tomorrow and for a few days to come. All will be more than appropriate for your own holiday party or to bring along to the ones you’ll be attending.

[Read more →]

“He who can give thanks for little will always find he has enough”~ Unknown

[Read more →]