When I am at a loss for what to make for dinner, taco salad is a go to recipe. It can be as easy or complicated as you choose. After being out of town for a week and eating out each night, homemade dinner was a must. The problem was I was short on time, I’d driven up to Flagstaff to retrieve Connor, rushed home to get the four of us ready to fly out the next morning for an early flight to Chicago. Normally I wouldn’t even bother making dinner on such a night, but Connor hadn’t had a home-cooked dinner for nearly 3 months, so taco salad it was.

This was the first time the kids were together in 3 months too, so they gave me my birthday gift. These darling herb garden markers! Marissa found and ordered them online from Etsy.com.

[Read more →]

For my upcoming appearance on Valley Dish, I was asked to create a dish out of 5 ingredients that a viewer had suggested. That sounded like fun, and it was, but it wasn’t exactly what I would consider 5 ingredients. I was emailed the list from the program producer, Cassie, as follows:  Swordfish, Cherry Tomatoes, Risotto, Arugula, and Buffalo Mozzarella. Does anyone else see the problem here? The answer – risotto isn’t what one would consider an ingredient, but rather a dish that stands alone.

Risotto is a classic Italian dish consisting of rice cooked in broth. The broth is added slowly, so that the rice absorbs it completely, creating a creamy consistency. Parmesan cheese, butter, and onion are the classic additions.

Therefore, rice is the ingredient. Specifically a high-starch, medium to short-grain rice. The varieties of choice are Arborio, Baldo, Padano, Roma, Carnaroli, and Vialone Nano. Arborio is the most readily available, while Carnaroli and Vialone Nano are considered the best and not coincidentally the most expensive. Here is the recipe I created and will be making live on Valley Dish (NBC Channel 12) next week. Hope you’ll tune in (or TIVO it – as I TIVO absolutely everything I watch) at 3:30 on Tuesday, November 9th.

[Read more →]

Finally! For two nights now we have had our windows open. The first evening we could hear the falling rain, all night long. Joy! Although the word from the weatherman is that it’ll be back up in the mid to high 80’s next week, we’re just enjoying it while we can. On that note, the winter squash dish yesterday made me crave more of the same. Today, instead of the exotic Red Kuri squash, we’ll go a little more traditional and work with the super fun spaghetti squash. Although the spaghetti-like strands of squash taste nothing like pasta, it’s a tasty and healthier way to “feel” like you’re eating pasta…

[Read more →]

I’ve been making these delectable fall-inspired appetizers for at least a dozen years and they are always a huge hit. I can’t recall exactly where the original recipe came from, all I know is that it was in one of the many Williams-Sonoma cookbooks I used to own. Depending on my mood or what I have on hand I’ll sub in walnuts for the pecans, Gorgonzola for the Roquefort, and pears or a mix of pears and apples, instead of all apples. Another fun addition is dried cranberries that have been soaked in a little cranberry juice or red wine, to plump them up. Just sprinkle them on before sprinkling on the nuts. FYI: 12 sheets of phyllo is just less than half a package.

[Read more →]

Here is the second of the two appetizer recipes using that 2-pound box of cherry tomatoes (cherubs). It couldn’t be easier and they will disappear before you know it … enjoy!

[Read more →]

I’m going to take a long weekend break from my “reminiscing about our first trip to France” month for the next 4 or 5 days and instead focus on appetizers! Fun and creative appetizers because now that it is fall in AZ… it is THE time to party outside and enjoy our weather!  We are going to start out nice and slow with a cool serving idea for a party staple … the Mexican layer dip.

[Read more →]

Aubergine, better known as eggplant, is a favorite of mine, although you wouldn’t know it by searching for it on this blog. In more than a year, this is only the fourth time it has appeared. That is due to the fact that Dave doesn’t think he really likes eggplant and I know a lot of people who feel the same way. But each time he has it, he skeptically says, “that was pretty good.”  I have a theory as to why that is usually the reaction. Dave, and many people, have had eggplant prepared badly. Sadly, it is a common phenomenon, because eggplant can be a huge greasy bitter mess.

Eggplant is like a sponge, it will soak up as much oil as it gives it.  And the flesh can sometimes be naturally bitter. Like cucumbers, tomatoes, potatoes, and tobacco; eggplant is a member of the nightshade family and it has much more of tobacco’s bitterness than the other family members.  The remedy for the bitter sponginess is to salt the flesh first. Salting, also known as degorging, accomplishes two goals: it pulls out juices that carry bitter flavors, and it collapses the air pockets in the eggplant’s sponge-like flesh, thus preventing it from absorbing so much oil and becoming greasy. The salted eggplant may be placed in a colander for an hour (best done with cubes) or placed in a single layer out on paper towels (best with slices). After the degorging is complete, rinse off the salt and squeeze dry before continuing. Eggplant can be cooked with the peel on or off. Unfortunately, the gorgeous aubergine color does not remain once it is heated, if it did, I would never peel it.

[Read more →]

I am working to perfect an appetizer recipe using precooked and prepackaged short ribs for my upcoming classes at Les Gourmettes Cooking School. I’ve found two different varieties of these convenient and lovely ribs at Costco.

The recipe I’m working on uses shredded meat along with a crunchy Dijon apple slaw inside mini polenta cups. I haven’t been able to get it just right as of yet, but I’ve been playing with the rib meat on some other tasty items. Here you’ll find one of the new quick creations – short rib quesadillas.

My series of three adult classes at Les Gourmettes begin on Tuesday evening, November 16th. We skip Thanksgiving week, resume on November 30th, and finish up on December 7th.  There are only 16 slots available, so if you are interested just let me know and I’ll email you the menus, (Thanksgiving Dinner, Christmas Buffet, and New Year’s Eve Cocktail Party) schedule, and registration form.

[Read more →]

A happy coincidence, meant to be, just by chance, lucky, a fluke, a quirk, or a twist of fate… whatever you call it, I like it! And I love that word, happenstance, awesome word! What, by chance, was the fateful occasion for me?

I had about 1/2 head each of green and orange cauliflower from the Colorful Cauliflower Purées of 5 days ago and was trying to decide what to do with it. Of course, I could just make a vegetable side dish or purée and freeze it for later use, but that felt mundane. I was leaning toward cauliflower soup, but it’s so dang hot outside. Instead of pondering it any longer, I decided to waste time on Facebook and, as luck would have it, there staring me in the eye was a recipe for a frittata using cauliflower, delivered directly to my home page from my Facebook friend, Food & Wine! Problem solved, and proof that perusing Facebook isn’t always a waste of time.

[Read more →]