I’m back if only temporarily. I’m working out one of life’s “little” challenges and have been eating restaurant food more than food from my own kitchen.  So… not a lot to blog about.  I really miss doing this and hope that anyone still hanging on out there, having patience with me, will keep being patient and wait for my life to become something vaguely resembling it’s former self. 

I have to admit something to you.  I have been holding back a pancake recipe.  It’s actually something I put together years ago and it is the recipe I go to often.  These are two-grain pancakes but the second grain is surprising. I created a whole-wheat pancake but switched out some of the flour for brown rice flour.  Brown rice flour has no gluten so using it in these pancakes gives the finished product a lighter texture and a nuttier flavor.  These pancakes can be made with buttermilk, which makes them thin, and almost crepe like.  The best way to make them however is to mix one part plain nonfat yogurt with one part milk for the liquid in the recipe and let the batter stand a few minutes before cooking the pancakes.  You will be rewarded with a thick, tall pancake with amazing flavor and texture.  Perfect for stacking.  Perfect for loading up with goodies. 

Today’s breakfast featured bananas cooked inside the pancakes until they caramelized.  We had the sweetest fresh strawberries so we generously loaded them on top of the pancakes with yogurt, maple syrup and wheat germ.  As the summer progresses, use any fruit that tickles your fancy either on or in the pancakes.  All berries except strawberries can be cooked into the cakes.  Stone fruit such as peaches and nectarines are also excellent cooked in the pancakes.  Toast pecans, walnuts or almonds to sprinkle on top.  You deserve it.

Mimi’s wheat and rice cakes

½ cup brown rice flour

1 cup whole-wheat pastry flour

½ tsp baking powder

¾ tsp baking soda

1 egg

1 cup nonfat yogurt mixed with 1 cup low fat milk until smooth, or 2 cups buttermilk

2 tbsp olive oil or canola oil

Butter for frying

Thinly sliced fruit or whole berries (optional)

In a large bowl mix together the brown rice flour, whole-wheat flour, baking powder and baking soda.  In another bowl, beat the egg.  Add the egg, milk/yogurt mixture or buttermilk and oil to the dry ingredients.  Mix well to make sure the wet and dry ingredients are incorporated but don’t over mix.  Let the batter stand at least ten minutes before you fry the pancakes.

Preheat an electric griddle to 325 degrees.  Melt butter on the griddle (for crispy edged pancakes).  Ladle the pancakes onto the griddle. If you want to add fruit, do it as soon as you ladle the pancakes onto the griddle.  Just sprinkle the fruit onto the surface of the cakes and lightly press it in.  Cook the pancakes until they look bubbly and dry on the edges.  This should take three or four minutes.  Turn the pancakes and cook them another two or three minutes.

The pancakes may have to be cooked in two batches.  If you are not serving the first batch right away, store them on a cookie sheet in a warm oven (200 degrees f.) or store them in a covered glass dish.

Enjoy!

I’m very blue.  I can’t discuss why but my blue demeanor is why there has been no activity on this blog for a while.  I’ll just leave it at that. No sense making everyone sad and worried.

Let’s talk about red.  Red is happy.  I made a sanguine risotto tonight.  I also sort of messed up on the recipe.  I bought the ingredients last Tuesday(!) and I was too upset to cook all week.  I didn’t grocery shop this weekend and when I went to figure out what there was to eat, I was amazed that the beets and basil I bought almost a week ago were in really good condition.  I was so excited that I didn’t let the food go bad that I didn’t follow directions.  I was using the recipe for Beet Risotto with Greens from Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone by Deborah Madison.  When I went shopping I made my first mistake.  I read the recipe as needing chard or the greens from the beets (I read an “or” not an “and”).  I was going to get both anyway but the chard looked bad.  I decided that the bunch of beets I got had more than enough greens for the recipe.  Then tonight, I misread that I was supposed to add chard (or ½ of those beet greens) with the rice and the rest of the beet greens towards the end.  The beet greens cooked down to a silky soft consistency that was really a pleasure to eat, but I can see where she was going with the recipe.  It might have been nice to have some greens with a chewy texture too.  Either way, this dish was super healthy and really satisfying to eat.

Beet Risotto

Accidentally adapted from Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone by Deborah Madison

5 ½ to 6 cups vegetable stock

1 tbsp butter

2 tbsp olive oil

½ of a large yellow onion, diced

1 ½ cups Arborio rice

½ cup dry white wine

2 tbsp chopped parsley

2 tbsp chopped fresh basil

3 – 4 medium beets peeled and grated in a food processor (about 2 cups)

4-6 cups beet greens (washed well to remove sand), chopped finely

Salt and pepper to taste

Grated zest and juice of 1 Meyer lemon

½ cup parmagiano reggiano

Chive blossoms (optional)

Bring the stock to a boil and then leave simmering on the stove.  Heat the oil and melt the butter in a deep, wide pot.  Add the onion and cook over medium heat for about 3 minutes until softened.  Add the rice.  Cook for one minute stirring to coat.  Add the wine.  Simmer until the wine is absorbed.  Stir in half the parsley, the basil, the grated beets and the beet greens.  Add 2 cups of stock.  Simmer, stirring until most of the stock is absorbed.  Add more stock ½ cup at a time stirring until the stock is absorbed.  Repeat the adding of stock, stirring and absorbing until you use up most of the stock.  When ½ cup of stock is left, taste the risotto to see if the rice is al dente.  If so you may not need more than 5 ½ cups of stock total.  Add salt and pepper to taste.  Add the juice and zest of the lemon.  Serve dusted with cheese and garnished with the remaining parsley and chive blossoms if you have them.

Am I nuts?  Well maybe.  But until I got to the cleanup part, it really wasn’t that bad.  Really.

How on earth did I manage to get the idea in my head that I could make a soufflé on a weekday during a time when I am working harder during the day then I ever have?  It all started last night.  No scratch that.  It all happened on Sunday if you really think about it.  But then again, it was probably Michael Pollan’s fault.  Who is that?  You mean that guy who wrote the Omnivore’s Dilemma?  That guy?  Well yeah.  I bought his new book:  In Defense of food: an eaters manifesto.  While not as engaging a read as OD, his new book was full of factoids.  Facts I know already because I read everything.  Facts that should make me a healthier person, that is if I paid any attention to the facts.  But I don’t.  This book opened my eyes to the fact that although I buy a lot of veggies, I am not so successful at getting them into my body before they melt down to a little smear in the bottom of my refrigerator’s crisper.  The fact that I am perfectly happy to cook healthy meals at home and then supplement these meals with god knows what at a restaurant.

Well.  I am trying to be better.  So I bought beets on Sunday.  I bought beets because beets are a bargain.  You get two veggies for the price of one (as long as you don’t let them melt in the fridge)!  You’ve got your sweet orbs of red, orange or yellow root for cooking or crunching up raw.  You’ve got your vitamin-enriched greens to eat like chard or kale.  This is a spectacular veggie that nobody is eating. 

Last night, I suddenly remember that I need to cook the greens before they melt.  I know how to make cooked greens taste pretty good but I wanted some inspiration.   I started leafing through the stacks of cookbooks.  I picked up Deborah Madison’s Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone.  Yes!!  This has got to be the right book.  I found the recipe that would do it:  You boil beet greens for a couple of minutes and then sauté them in olive oil, sliced garlic and tomatoes.  Add a touch of dried oregano and top with Asiago (which I didn’t have so I used Parmesan).  I Plopped this ethereal mixture onto the top of a warm piece of leftover cornbread and I was in heaven.  It was the best thing I put in my mouth in a long time.

While I was looking for the beet recipe, I stumbled onto her soufflé section.  Ms Madison has this recipe for Goat Cheese Soufflé with thyme that she follows with a half dozen veggie infused variations.  I couldn’t stop obsessing over the possibilities.  As you know, I am a sucker for the bonus meal, the meal you make that comes about from the serendipity of having just the right things in your kitchen that aren’t on a shopping list that becomes something really amazing.  I thought about this recipe all day while I was at work.  You see, I never thought I could make a soufflé because I don’t own the right dish to cook it in.  Deborah Madison cooks soufflés in a gratin dish.  I have a gratin dish; I could do this!!  I could finish up that little bit of cream from last week.  I have plenty of eggs.  I can substitute Rosemary for the thyme and green onions for the white onion slices, etc, etc.  My mind kept rewriting the recipe to suit my needs.  This would work!

Well. Let me tell you! You need to make a soufflé.  Even if it is a weeknight and you are tired.  It was that good.  It was flavorful and it had a texture that was both fluffy and lightly bready.

Being the crazy gal that I am, I made a salad of two lettuces, thinly sliced yellow beets, radishes, grated carrots, green onions, avocado, and blood oranges.  I also made homemade buttermilk dressing.  Aren’t you jealous I didn’t invite you over?  Well, I’m kinda peaved I didn’t invite you over because the kitchen was grotesque and I could have used your help cleaning!

The moral of this story is, read in Defense of food.  It will make you a better eater.  Make sure you have a copy of Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone.  It is one of the best cookbooks I own.

Broccoli Cheddar Soufflé

Adapted from Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone by Deborah Madison

Butter for greasing the pan plus 2 tbsp freshly grated Parmesan for coating the dish

1 ¼ cups milk or cream or milk and cream (which is what I did)

Aromatics:  Rosemary (or thyme), fresh bay leaf (or dried), 3 2” pieces of green onion

3 tbsp butter

3 tbsp whole-wheat pastry flour

1/2 tsp salt

Freshly ground pepper

Dash of cayenne

2 tsp Dijon mustard

1 cup steamed and then finely chopped broccoli

½ cup sharp cheddar, grated

4 egg yolks

6 egg whites

Minced parsley and cilantro for garnish

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.  Butter an eight-cup gratin dish and coat the butter with the Parmesan.  Heat the milk/cream with the aromatics until it just boils then remove it from the heat and let it stand 15 minutes.  Remove the aromatics.

Melt butter in a large saucepan over low heat until foamy.  Stir in the flour and cook over low heat for a few minutes (it should get thick and aromatic but don’t let it burn!).  Whisk in the milk all at once, stirring vigorously for a couple of minutes until it thickens.  Add salt, pepper, cayenne and mustard.  Mix well and remove from heat.  Beat in the egg yolks one at a time until well blended.  Stir in the cheese.

Beat the egg whites with a dash of salt until they form stiff peaks.  Mix a quarter of the egg whites into the soufflé mixture to lighten it up.  Fold the rest of the egg whites into the soufflé mixture being careful not to over mix and deflate your egg whites.  Transfer the soufflé from the mixing pan to the gratin dish.  Put the dish into the center of the oven and lower the heat to 375 degrees F.  Bake for 25 minutes until puffed and brown.  Serve immediately garnished with parsley and cilantro.

Over the past few weeks, this has been anything but a food blog and my diet has been anything but healthy.  During the weeks I was away, my Mom and I ate a lot of restaurant/fast food and hospital food.  The stress made us too tired to take care of ourselves properly and there was really no time to take care of the day-to-day chores like grocery shopping and cooking.  My Dad is back at home now and getting stronger every day.  I called him a couple of days ago and asked him how he was.  He boisterously replied “TERRIFIC!!!”  Which is his standard answer to that standard question.  I instantly knew things were now normal.  Things will be o.k.

I have been cooking a few things since I have gotten back but we have gotten into a bad restaurant habit again.  Work has been stressful since I have been back so I have been easing my personal life slowly back to that place called normal. 

Today was the first day I really felt home.  It was the first day that I really got excited about getting back into the kitchen.  I woke up and wanted to make pancakes.  If you have been browsing around this blog, you know that Saturday mornings mean breakfast at my home.  Saturdays are all about sleeping in late and then settling into a yummy plate of something sweet or savory and very filling, a glass of fresh squeezed orange juice and a mug of something hot, bitter and steamy.

I wanted pancakes and after brushing off the remnants of a strange dream where I was traveling somewhere on a Greyhound bus and my Mother was loading an unending supply of plastic bags of groceries onto the bus for me, my mind was ready to use the energy from that dream state and come up with something beautiful in the real world.  For some reason, I began to think of carrot cake and how wonderful pancakes would be if they were carrot cake instead.  I found a small bunch of thin, sweet carrots in the vegetable drawer of our fridge.  They were too small to peel, so I scrubbed them well and shredded them.  Using a favorite recipe for sweet potato pancakes as a general roadmap, I came up with some fragrant dried fruit and vegetable pancakes that take getting your first serving of vegetables for the day to another plain of experience altogether.

Carrot Cake Pancakes

2 cups of shredded carrots

2 tsp. finely grated orange peel

2 large eggs, scrambled

2 cups milk

1 cup currants

4 tbsp olive oil

1 tbsp dark honey

2 cups whole-wheat pastry flour

4 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

2 tsp cinnamon

¼ tsp nutmeg

¼ tsp ginger powder

½ tsp allspice

Butter for frying

Maple-cinnamon yogurt (recipe follows)

Toasted Walnuts

In a large bowl, combine shredded carrots, orange peel, eggs, milk, currants, olive oil and honey.  In another bowl, combine flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and allspice.  Mix dry ingredients into wet ingredients.  Let the batter stand for at least ten minutes.  (This will result in a fluffier pancake with softer currants).  If using an electric griddle, preheat the griddle to 350 degrees F.  Melt butter onto griddle surface.  Ladle batter onto griddle.  Cook pancakes until bubbles form and the edges begin to dry out about 3-4 minutes.  Turn pancakes.  Cook second side until lightly browned, about 1-2 minutes more. 

This recipe makes a lot of pancakes, even with a large electric griddle you will need to make two batches.  Keep the first batch warm in a covered dish or a preheated 200 degree F. oven  Serve these with Maple Cinnamon Yogurt, Maple Syrup and toasted walnuts to get the full effect of carrot cake for breakfast.

Maple-cinnamon yogurt

1 cup of plain nonfat yogurt

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp maple syrup

 Combine yogurt, cinnamon and maple syrup with a whisk until smooth.

After months of unusually hot weather, we are finally beginning to get the kind of winter chill that makes me think of Christmastime even though the sky is still clear and blue and the air is dry.  That’s California for you.  No change of season when you think about it.  It’s either dry and hot or dry and cold.

Our local farmer’s market also reflects the season.  We have persimmons, oranges and apples and that’s about it.  Some enterprising farmers dried their summer and fall bounty so plenty of dried fruit is also available.  With that in mind, I wanted fruit on my pancakes but the kitchen was looking pretty sparse.  We have plenty of Fuji apples in the fridge so playing off of a recipe for maple roasted yams that I love, I decided to maple roast some Fuji’s to top our pancakes with.  This was an impromptu effort on my part so the following recipe is just an approximation.  I don’t think it would be easy to mess these up even with my “pinch of this, pinch of that” instructions.  These apples were fabulous on our favorite cornmeal pancakes with yogurt and toasted walnuts.  I think they would also make an excellent side dish for pork chops as well.

Maple roasted apples

4-5 Fuji apples, peeled, cored and sliced

Lemon zest from ½ a lemon, approx. 1 tsp

1-2 tsp lemon juice

A generous amount of cinnamon

A miserly amount of nutmeg

Ginger to taste

A generous handful of raisons

2-3 tbsp grade B maple syrup

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. 

Toss the apple slices with lemon juice and zest.  Combine apple mixture with raisons and cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger and maple syrup to coat.  Roast the apples in the middle of the oven for 20 minutes or until the raisons are plump and the apples are caramelized and soft and lightly browned.

For a few years, I had the pleasure of accompanying my best friend and her husband to a Canadian lodge each fall for their anniversary.  It was the perfect vacation.  A kind of a summer camp for grown ups.  You get to sleep in a cabin.  You can participate in different activities such as kayaking or tennis or bike riding.  You can be incredibly lazy and read and nap all day long if that’s what you are into.  This place feeds you well several times per day.  The reason I bring this up is that breakfast could be a choice of light fare or you could choose to put together a giant stick to your ribs feast.  Since Canada is part of the United Kingdom, the breakfast choices included some English seeming choices.  One of which is the choice to have a grilled tomato with breakfast.  Once I discovered this option, I had to have it most mornings that I stayed there.  It was quite delectable with eggs, indeed.

After I stopped going on vacation with my friends to Canada, I forgot about grilled tomatoes as a breakfast side dish.  One weekend at the “In laws”, my boyfriend’s step mom made broiled tomatoes as a side dish for dinner.  They were so good that I had to have seconds.  They were broiled tomatoes with herbs and Parmesan sprinkled on top.  Oh, they were so very yummy.  Roasting the tomatoes for 15 minutes and then broiling the cheese on top gives the tomatoes a wonderful sweet flavor.  They are divine!

I use tomatoes a lot when they are in season and it is rare for me to buy them and then not finish them up for whatever their intended purpose was.  I am a Virgo and adhering to a shopping list and the ensuing plan for the groceries during the week is a must or else I start going a little crazy.  You don’t really want to see me if I start getting a little crazy.  This week I somehow managed to buy too many tomatoes.  When I went in the kitchen to figure out what to eat for breakfast, I realized that if I didn’t do something, I would lose them.  They would eventually spoil.  On the rare occasion that I have tomatoes just milling about the kitchen, I have improvised my own version of broiled tomatoes.  They are amazing as a side dish to eggs and toast.  Just add coffee and a cold glass of OJ and it is fine dining.

I know it is late in the season to be posting a recipe about roasting tomatoes but we are still lucky enough to have the last of the fall tomatoes.  I hit the Farmer’s market after breakfast and decided to replace the tomatoes I used up this morning with a fresh batch.  The heirloom tomatoes are definitely on their way out after a week of chilly, foggy weather.  If you can still get some tomatoes locally or you are someone who doesn’t care how far your tomatoes travel to get to you, roasting them in this fashion should yield a tasty, flavorful side dish even though the tomatoes are starting to be a pale facsimile of their glorious summer selves.  If you have any of these roasted tomatoes leftover, you should use them for a tasty vegetarian sandwich.  I don’t think you’ll end up with any leftovers.

Roasted and broiled tomatoes

3 or 4 large ripe tomatoes, sliced horizontally into 2-3 thick slices.

2 large garlic cloves, minced

Dried basil to taste or fresh basil, minced, to taste

Dried oregano to taste or fresh oregano, minced to taste

Pepper

½ to 1 cup of shredded hard cheese such as Parmesan or Romano

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Use a broiler safe pan that is large enough to accommodate the amount of tomato slices you will have.  I use a well-seasoned iron griddle.  If the pan you are using is something that is not seasoned and sticking could be an issue, oil the pan.  Place the tomato slices on your pan.  Sprinkle them with garlic, basil, oregano and pepper.  Top each herbed tomato slice with a generous mound of cheese.  Bake in the oven for 15 minutes.  Turn on the broiler and broil until cheese melts and browns slightly.  Serve immediately.

Over the years, I have always relied on what nutritionists have touted as the wonder veggies.  If I found a way to get some broccoli, cauliflower or cabbage into me, I felt virtuous.  Don’t get me wrong.  I am not about to say anything bad about these veggies.  They are high in nutrition.  As a matter of fact, I feel that any food that grows on a plant has to be good for me.  A few years back, I started eating swiss chard and kale.  They compliment each other well.  They are wonderful in pasta or as a side dish.  At this time of the year, they are readily available and at their peak of flavor.  One day, I decided to find out how nutritious they are.  Holy cow!!  You eat these two veggies and you’ll be set for the day on vitamins A and K.  Together, they will just about give you all of the vitamin C you need.  You’ll get omega three fatty acids and a whole host of other vitamins and minerals.  Check out these links to see some charts on what you get by eating kale and chard.  Amazing.

After learning how good for me these leafy greens are, I started to try to add them to my diet as much as I could.  One dish we really love is a pasta dish with sausage, roasted red peppers and the greens.  You make a lovely wine enhanced tomato and sausage sauce and then you melt the greens into it, cooking them until they are just sweet and tender.  Yum!

Here is a note about the ingredients for this dish:  Since we typically crave this dish in the winter, I usually purchase canned roasted red peppers.  I get these at Trader Joes who imports them from Spain.  I have never been to Spain so I think it is unfair that my red peppers get to come to the U.S. from Spain.  Since I can still find red peppers at the Farmers Market (they may be the last, it is starting to get cold now).  I roasted them myself this time.  If you have a rotten, stupid electric stove and oven like I do, broil the red peppers on a heavy-duty pan.  Broil them on all sides until the skin is blistered and charred.  Place the peppers in a covered dish to steam for 10 minutes or so.  Let them cool enough to handle and then peel and seed them.  You can use any kind of sausage for this recipe that would work with a tomato based sauce but we prefer chicken basil sausage.  Italian sausage is good too, but the chicken is mild tasting and the basil helps give the sauce a little bit of a kick.  Make sure the kale and chard is extremely clean.  Like spinach, it can be sandy.  The sand tends to stick in the bumpy textured leaves.  I usually chop the leaves and then use the bowl and colander of a salad spinner to wash the leaves.  I fill the bowl full of water and then swish the leaves around and then drain.  I repeat this until I see no sand in the bottom of the salad spinner.  It is usually a triple wash process.  This dish can be made with any tube pasta but penne is especially good.

Penne with Sausage, Roasted Peppers and Greens

3 chicken and basil sausages

5 cloves garlic, chopped

1 large onion, chopped

1 lb penne

15 oz can of tomato sauce

½ cup (or more) dry red wine

7.25 oz jar roasted red peppers drained and torn into strips or 3 medium homemade roasted red peppers and any juice that accumulates after you peel them, torn into strips

1 bunch each of kale and chard, chopped and washed very well

¼ cup Parmesan plus more for serving

Boil the water for the pasta.  While the water heats, brown the sausage with garlic and onion over medium heat in a large deep skillet for about 10 minutes.  Add the pasta to the boiling water and cook per directions on the bag (probably 8 minutes) until al dente.  While the pasta is cooking, add tomato sauce, wine and peppers to the sausage mixture.  Bring to a boil and then add the cheese and greens.  You may have to add the greens in handfuls, stirring and adding more to the pan as they wilt and make room. If the mixture starts to look dry add a splash of wine.  Cook until the greens are wilted and tender, lowering the heat to medium if necessary. Drain pasta and add sauce to the pasta mixing everything to combine well.  Serve with extra Parmesan sprinkled on top.

Today let’s time travel back to 1998.  I was trapped in a job that did not make me happy.  I answered phones for the cable company.  I am still at this company.  I love the company I work for, don’t get me wrong but answering phones for any company can be a trying experience.  At one point, I loved answering the phones.  When I first joined my employer we were very focused on customer service.  I loved customer service.  Back then I was a sweet and kind person, not yet coarsened by years abuse by strangers who don’t care how they treat the disembodied voice on the phone.  After a couple of years, my company went from being a privately held company to a publicly held company.  We went from a pure customer service focus to a heavy sales focus.  I am in no ways a sales person.  I have a hard time getting into the mind set that making someone spend money on something they did not ask me for is in their best interest.  All good sales people need to believe they are doing what is right for the customer.  I couldn’t do that.  Once the focus of the job changed, I became miserable and wanted to find a way out.  A friend and coworker took computer classes and managed to escape into our Information Technology department.  She was very happy there.  I decided it was time for training.

I have always thought of myself as having a creative bent.  When I was young, I wanted to be an actress and my first attempt at college took me to drama school.  I went back to school in 1997 to take computer classes and discovered that our junior college was starting to heavily get into multi media.  Computers and art!  Sign me up!  Alas, I found out that at the time, fledgling webmasters were a dime a dozen and they were getting paid less than I could make answering phones.  I live in an expensive resort community so I had to buckle down and take the less exciting sorts of computer classes that would help me get an information technology job, which I did.  I moved to a department were the work is still stressful but much more rewarding.  I am happier now.

In 1998, before I became practical, I took a web design class.  The web was still getting off the ground at that point.  Some people were still putting together websites by hand with HTML code.  I put together a chili pepper website for the class that I was very proud of.  The site is no longer live on the web but it still lives on my hard drive.  Here is the home page.  Recognize the chili banner?  I drew that.  I still like it so much I used it on my blog. 

Here is the fancy part.  I have java script that causes the links to glow a fiery red when you mouse over them.  I was very, very proud of that.

At the time, I was looking everywhere for content to put on my web page.  I was talking to my Mom one day and I told her about my project for school.  My Mom suddenly starts telling me how to make a jalapeno hot sauce.  I sit there a little stunned while I quickly try to write it down.  My Mom is from Guatemala but the whole time I am growing up she rarely cooked Hispanic food.  We ate like any other American family on our block:  Spaghetti, soup, grilled cheese sandwiches, roast chicken, steak, hamburgers, etc.  She would also make plenty of non-kid friendly food that my New Yorker dad who grew up between the 30’s and 50’s would like such as grilled liver and onions and baked trout.  Needless to say, on those days I would hover over at my best friend’s house like a homeless waif at dinnertime until someone would take pity on me and invite me to stay.  Sure we would sometimes eat beans and tortillas if money was tight and I can remember her making chili rellenos and chilaquiles.  Avocados and salsa were not strangers.  But she never made these things on a daily basis like most Hispanic moms would.  When she rattled off this hot sauce recipe, all I could think was, “she never made this for us!  How does she have this memorized?”  My Mom cooks without recipes.  Her food is good but not fancy.  I wish I could do that.  I am getting better, but I can’t dictate a recipe to you off of the top of my head.  Anyway, I was a little skeptical about how this salsa would turn out.  I went ahead and made it and it was really good!  It is especially nice on scrambled eggs nestled in a warm tortilla.  I went ahead and published my website online in order to pass my class (the teacher wanted our final projects to be live) and my Mom’s hot sauce was good enough to share with the world.

I hadn’t made it in years but every fall when the Jalapenos are red, I mean to make it.  Last week at he farmer’s market, one of my favorite farmers had red jalapenos for one dollar a pound.  I scooped up a pound of them.  He was shocked; most people buy a couple of pennies worth of jalapenos at a time.  He wondered what I would make.  I declared:  “Hot sauce!”   I amused him, I could tell.  This hot sauce is worth the work. 

If you decide to make this hot sauce there are rules.  Please do not break the rules.  They are for your own good.

1. Make sure to run the fan above your stove and open a window or two.  Fumes from the chilies and the vinegar will make you sneeze, cough,  and may give you watery eyes.
2. Evacuate anything or anyone you love from the area.  Significant others, children, pets, Herbert.  The fumes and smells will cause complaints
3. Wear gloves when working with chilies.
4. Whether you believe me or not about #3.  (#3 is the rule I always break.  I have also been known to use caustic household chemicals without gloves.  Do as I say, not as I do).  Do not touch your eyes, nose or mouth with your gloves or your naked hands if you refuse to listen.  I repeat, do not allow jalapeno juice near any mucus membranes!
5. This sauce will splatter, be careful not to get burned.
6. Don’t be scared. Make this hot sauce.

 Carmen’s jalapeno hot sauce

1 lb ripe (red) jalapeno chilies, seeds removed and coarsely chopped

1 cup apple cider vinegar

1 cup water

5 whole garlic cloves

1 small onion, roughly chopped

2 bay leaves

4 sprigs fresh thyme or 1 tsp dried thyme

1 – 2 tbsp fresh oregano or 1 tsp dried oregano

½ tsp salt

1 tbsp olive oil

Place all of the ingredients except for the oil in a medium sized saucepan and simmer until soft, 18 to 20 minutes.  Cool slightly.  Remove the bay leaves and carefully, transfer the jalapeno mixture to a food processor.  Puree until smooth.  Wash and dry your saucepan.  Heat the oil in the saucepan over medium heat and then carefully add the puree.  The sauce may splatter when it hits the hot oil.  Stir.  Heat the sauce over medium heat to a strong simmer and then reduce to a low simmer.  Simmer for up to 15 minutes, stirring occasionally, to thicken the sauce.  During this time the sauce may splatter.  I use a splatter guard but it really doesn’t help.  Try to cook this on the lowest simmer you can while still having the liquid evaporate and the sauce thicken while minimizing the mess and chance of getting burned.  Cool the sauce at room temperature and then store the sauce in an airtight container in the fridge.

Hooray for fall!  Although this is the first official day of autumn, we really began to feel the autumn crispness in the air a few days ago and we got the first welcome bit of rain a couple of days ago as well.  The reason I am so happy about the cooling of the air and the meager bit of rain is due to experiencing an extremely dry year that culminated with the Zaca fire, which burned for six weeks, eventually becoming the second largest fire in California history.  The Santa Barbara area was covered in soot and smoke for most of this six week period and everyone was on edge wondering if the fire would be contained, burn right past us into Ventura or come roaring down the mountain range into town.  The air was dry and hot.  The stress was palpable in the air and thoughts of lazy summer days were vanquished. After the fire was contained, we got treated to another fire just north of town in Gaviota which burned for a day and kept half of my coworkers home being that they commute from the north side of our county to work.  So I say, after the summer of fire, bring on the rain!  Bring on the cool, sweater weather!  The soups, the roast meat and veggies, the smell of baking bread and desserts.  I am oh so ready!!

To celebrate the first day of autumn, we decided to make an old standby:  pumpkin pancakes.  I thought I found the original recipe for these in Sunset magazine years ago but I can’t find the recipe online.  In a way these are mine now anyway.  I have made adjustments to the original recipe over the years and I double the recipe to use up the whole can of pumpkin. By doubling the recipe this way, we get around fourteen four-inch pancakes.  We like the leftovers.  The pancakes heat up well in the microwave.  If you are a small family, who doesn’t like leftovers, half the recipe and freeze the other half can of pumpkin puree for a later batch of pancakes.  

Although these pancakes scream out autumn, they are delicious any time of the year so store up a few extra cans of pumpkin, or if you are industrious, make sure you can or freeze some extra homemade pumpkin puree for later.  To tell you the truth, we eat these pancakes all year long just because they are so extremely good.

Just a note before we get to the recipe:  these pancakes and any other pancake that has and will appear on this blog can be made with any kind of white flour.  Do yourself and your loved ones a favor and go get yourself a bag of whole-wheat pastry flour instead.  Whole-wheat pastry flour has all of the same nutritional benefits of stone ground whole-wheat flour including 4 gm of fiber per quarter cup (white flour has less than one gram of fiber per quarter cup).  According to the World’s healthiest food site, whole-wheat flour is good source of manganese, magnesium and tryptophan.  You get these nutrients naturally without the flour having to be fortified with nutrients.

Pumpkin Pancakes

2 cups whole-wheat pastry flour

3-4 tbsp packed brown sugar (depending on how sweet you like your pancakes)

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp dried ground ginger

½ tsp nutmeg

½ tsp salt

2 large eggs

1 ½ cups milk

1 15 oz can of pumpkin puree

½ cup plain, nonfat yogurt

4 tbsp olive oil

butter for frying

In a large bowl, stir together flour, brown sugar, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and salt.  Break up any large clumps of brown sugar with your fingers (although any small remaining clumps will make delicious melted sugar clumps in your pancakes).  In another bowl beat the eggs with a whisk and then whisk in the milk, pumpkin, yogurt and oil until well blended.  Stir the egg mixture into the dry ingredients until just combined.  Let batter sit for a few minutes.  Meanwhile, preheat an electric pancake grill to 325 degrees F.  When the grill is hot, melt the butter onto the grill.  Ladle batter onto the grill and cook the pancakes for two to three minutes until the edges are dry and bubbly.  Turn the pancakes and cook for another one to two minutes.  We have to make these in two batches.  Either serve the first batch of pancakes immediately or store the first batch in a warm (200 degree F.) oven until ready to serve.  Serve with plain yogurt and either maple syrup or applesauce.

Have I told you that I watch a little too much Food Network?  I have to confess that I do.  The worst part is that I have begun to watch Food Network when I am at the gym.  I enjoy it, but I feel self conscious like I am a cliché:  the tubby girl watching Food Network while she works out.  Now the reason why I am making this admission to you is because of Rachel Ray.   For a while there, I was addicted to 30-minute meals.  The thing I noticed after watching scores of episodes was that although Rachel Ray uses such short cuts as bagged pre-cut veggies and bagged pre-shredded cheese, she always takes the time to make salad dressing from scratch.  I tried making a couple of her dressings and they weren’t half bad.  I had made some salad dressings from scratch before watching 30-minute meals, but watching that show made me realize that there was really no reason to buy salad dressing.  A good dressing could be constructed in a few minutes.

I often make Mexican style meals because they are as easy to improvise as pasta.  Do you have a bag of corn tortillas, a jar of salsa, some leftover chicken and some cheese?  Well, my friend, you have enchiladas!  One day when I was tossing things together, I decided a nice crispy green salad would be great to go with our meal.  I didn’t want a regular creamy style dressing and vinaigrette didn’t seem right either.  I hate it when you go out for Mexican food and they can’t give you a salad that seems authentic.  The choices are usually Ranch or Bleu cheese.  I wanted something that felt more like the simple tomato and cucumber salad my friends make but would also be reminiscent of something like ceviche.  I had a lot of citrus fruit and the idea of something tart sounded so good.  I thought about what would compliment the flavor of orange juice and lime juice and chili powder sounded good.  I improvised a dressing and loved the result.  I made it maybe one more time and forgot about it.

Tonight, I decided to use some leftover chicken to make quesadillas.  As I was making guacamole, I realized I had plenty of limes left over and a bowl of oranges.  I made the citrus chili dressing from earlier in the summer, adding ground cumin to the recipe.  I scavenged in the fridge and found all sorts of yummies to make salad with.  In a stroke of insight, I decided to add fresh cilantro and chunks of cantaloupe to the salad.  Those two additions to the salad complimented the dressing well. 

Salad is a lot of work but I felt really good about balancing out a cheesy meal with something really healthy.  I hope you like the result of my improvised salad.  As a suggestion, add tomatoes and avocado if you have them.  I had to use mine up for the guacamole but they would add even more flavor to the salad.

Cilantro and cantaloupe green salad with citrus chili dressing

Dressing:

½ cup olive oil

juice of 1 orange

juice of 1 lime

1 tsp chili powder

½ tsp ground cumin

salt to taste

Salad:

½ head of red leaf lettuce, washed and torn into bite sized pieces

½ large cucumber, peeled and chopped

6 radishes, sliced

1 small red pepper, sliced

¼ - ½ cantaloupe, chopped

½ red onion, thinly sliced

2 handfuls chopped cilantro

Mix together citrus juices, chili powder, cumin and salt.  Slowly pour oil into citrus mixture as you whisk with a fork or small whisk.  Set dressing aside.  Chop and slice all of your salad ingredients and add them to a large bowl.  Add as much dressing as you like to the salad and toss.  This makes close to a cup of dressing and the dressing is pretty thin.  I use it all but you may want to add less, toss and taste.  If you feel like you need it all, add it all.