Eggplant Danish

I've decided it's time to challenge myself to new ways to cook eggplant.

Eggplant Lasagne, Rolatini, Little Gram's Appetizer... Stuffed Eggplant, Eggplant Caviar... They've been done. Many times.

It's time to start thinking outside of the box, so to speak. And that's how Eggplant Danish came to be!

I was thinking of making a sweet dough for breakfast and left myself a note that just said "make danish."  This morning I looked at the note and decided it meant to make a savory danish - with eggplant. I mean - why not, right?!?

Right.

So I set to work. I pulled out my basic sweet dough recipe and thought that it would work as written - with the addition of some chopped herbs. It's a pretty basic recipe and not overly-sweet. I figured I'd keep the sugar for tenderness and just add some herbs to offset.

Eggplant Danish

Dough:

  • 2/3 cup milk
  • 5 tbsp sugar
  • 1/2 pkt yeast
  • 2 large eggs
  • 2 3/4 cups flour
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1 cube (stick) butter
  • 2 tbsp chopped assorted herbs (basil, oregano, parsley, chives, mint, etc.)

Lightly warm milk. Stir into mixing bowl with 1 tbsp sugar and 1/2 packet yeast. Proof about 5 minutes. Add eggs and mix.

Add flour, salt and remaining 4 tbsp sugar, and mix with dough hook.

Add softened butter, 1 tablespoon at a time, mixing well between additions.

Continue to mix for about 5 minutes or until soft dough is formed.

Add chopped herbs and mix well. Dough will be very soft.

Roll into ball and place in buttered bowl to rise until doubled.

Filling:

  • 2 medium eggplants
  • 2 cloves garlic
  • 1/4 cup grated parmesan
  • 1/2 cup loosely packed chopped fresh herbs
  • Salt & Pepper
  • 1 cup chopped roasted hot peppers
  • 1 cup shredded asiago cheese
  • 1/4 cup Dry Marsala

Peel and dice eggplant. Mix eggplant with olive oil and place on a lined baking pan. Roast in a 375°F oven for about 45 minutes or until soft and well-cooked.

When slightly cooled, place in food processor with garlic, herbs, cheese, marsala, and S&P to taste. Set aside to cool completely.

To Assemble:

Roll out dough on a floured board. Dough will be very soft.

Spread with cooled eggplant mixture.

Scatter roasted hot peppers atop eggplant.

Sprinkle with cheese.

Roll from long end, jelly-roll-style. Slice into rolls, 1 1/2" to 2" wide and place on greased cookie sheet. They will be soft and slightly messy. Just go for it.

Top with chopped pistachios, cover with a clean kitchen towel and let rise, again, about 30 minutes.

Bake in a preheated 375°F oven for about 25 minutes.

Let cool and enjoy.

They came out ridiculously good! The dough is really light and the flavors just work without any underlying sweetness. There's the subtle eggplant, the cheese, the herbs, the crunch of the pistachios... We are pleased with this one!

We already dived into them but they're really going to work tonight with roasted chicken and sweet potatoes...

What's next?!?

 

 

 


Melanzane or Aubergine or Eggplant or...

Regardless of what ya call it, we have it. I think I mentioned that we had a hard time keeping up with one plant last year - so this year we planted two of them.

What were we thinking?!?

I mean... it may be time to put myself up for a Darwin Award. Well... an Honorable Mention, anyway...

They are the plants that keep on giving - and look as if they will be giving for quite a while. Time to start getting creative.

I decided tonight was going to be an all-eggplant egg-straveganza and thought a souffle was in order. When was the last time you had an eggplant souffle?!? If your answer is "never" - join the club. Neither had we.

Which, of course, meant I had to make one.

A souffle is basically stuff lightened by egg whites and baked in the oven, so I felt reasonably confident I could pull this one off. I'm good at stuff and we always have plenty of eggs in the house. Off to the kitchen I went...

There were 5 eggplants in the bowl on the table. I took the largest three and started work. One was going to be for the main course part of dinner - two for the souffle.

Eggplant Souffle

  • 2 medium eggplants
  • 3 green plum tomatoes
  • 3 cloves garlic
  • 1 stalk celery, diced
  • 2 shallots, minced
  • 1/2 cup dry marsala
  • Robiola cheese
  • Asiago Cheese
  • Ricotta Salada Cheese
  • Provolone Cheese
  • Mozzarella Cheese
  • 5 eggs
  • Fresh Basil
  • Fresh Oregano
  • Fresh Mint
  • Fresh Chives
  • S&P

I peeled and diced 2 of the eggplants and tossed them in a bowl with some olive oil and a bit of S&P. I spread it out on a sheet pan and roasted it for about 45 minutes at 375°F. along with 3 green plum tomatoes and a few cloves of garlic.

Meanwhile, I sauteed the diced celery and shallots in a combination of butter and olive oil.

When the eggplant was well cooked and nicely browned, I mixed it and the garlic and the tomatoes with the celery. I then added the chopped herbs. I just picked and grabbed - probably about a loosely-packed half cup all together.

Next went the cheese. I probably used just under 2 cups of chopped, sliced, and/or shredded cheeses.

I let it cool just a bit and then added 5 egg yolks and mixed it all very well.

I whipped the egg whites with a pinch of cream of tartar to stiff peaks and then folded them into the eggplant mixture.

I buttered a casserole dish and then coated it with bread crumbs and poured the eggplant inside, leveled the top, and placed it into a 350°F oven for about 45 minutes.

This really rocked the Casbah! Really light, rich, and flavorful. Great texture and consistency. Almost like I have to start making more souffles!

And then we had the main course - sausages and vegetables...

Into the pot went a clean-out-the-'fridge assortment of veggies... the third eggplant - sliced into strips, fennel, beans from the garden, watermelon radishes, onion, celery, carrots, yellow zucchini, along with some garlic, red wine, and S&P. I covered it and let it simmer away for about 20 minutes, and then added some peeled potatoes I just cut in half and buried in the pan. A few minutes later, I added the sausage and let it cook another 10 minutes, covered. Then it went uncovered into a 375°F oven to brown the sausage and evaporate a bit of the juices.

Two totally different eggplant concepts - and they both worked well...

I wonder what eggplant ice cream would be like?

Hmmmmmm.........


More From The Garden

Overcast and more rain on the way. Not very good weather for tomatoes.

The tomato plants are actually getting scary - there are a bazillion tomatoes and they keep growing and growing - but they're not ripening.

These are San Marzano's that I really want to can. They are seriously looking fantastic - just not red.

There are at least 5 varieties of tomatoes in here... All heirlooms and San Marzano's.

On the other hand, this is the little plot of land that keeps on giving. Ripe tomatoes may be scarce, but other stuff is coming up like mad. This is today's haul. I'm going to make a pepper relish this weekend, and I think an eggplant souffle is in our future. Green beans are going crazy. Peppers are slow this year - too much rain for them.

Our little plot of land has come a long way since we bought this place back in 2001. This was the side of the house back in those days. It was an overgrown mess of ivy and weeds. The tree right next to the house was the first to go, and then we cleaned it all out and extended the fence to the front edge of the house to give Cybil more room to play. I can't find an old picture looking down to the street but to give you perspective, the bottom of the picture is probably about the middle of the new garden. It really was an overgrown mess.

The whole yard - front and back - was an overgrown mess. The whole neighborhood was more overgrown when we moved in, though. Lots of stuff planted by original owners had reached maturity. We've had to take down probably a dozen trees in the past 16 years - which gave us the sunlight to have the solar panels installed. The original house was way too shaded. The neighborhood is getting more manicured as the oldtimers move out and younger folks move in. Houses are also being remodelled and doubled in size. Fine with me as long as ours sells well when the time comes.

In the meantime, the 10-Day forecast isn't looking to be too helpful, but we may see sun by Wednesday.

Here's hoping!

 


Tapenade

I think I have to stop watching cooking shows. I just made tapenade. Again.

The other night we were watching cooking shows on TV - Martha Stewart, I think - and she made a tapenade. I don't recall what she did with it, but I do remember thinking that it would probably be awesome mixed into roasted potatoes.

Last month I saw Jacques Pepin make a tapenade and stuff it into chicken breasts and made that. I'm thinking that somewhere along the line, I like tapenades...

Funny, because as a kid, I was not an olive-eater. I was always an adventurous eater, but olives eluded me. No idea when the olive bug bit me, but I've made up for however many olives I didn't eat, growing up.

We had a bunch of marble-sized potatoes, so I decreed they would be perfect, tonight. And what a shock. They were!

I didn't exactly follow a recipe for the tapenade - I mean - it's olives and capers and anchovies and garlic and stuff - so here's an approximation of what I did:

Mixed Olive Tapenade

  • 1 1/2 cups assorted olives (I used kalamata, oil cured kalamata, California black olives, and giant Chalkidiki olives)
  • 1 clove garlic
  • 3 anchovies
  • 2 tbsp capers
  • 1 green onion
  • 4 large leaves fresh basil
  • 3 tbsp olive oil
  • black pepper

I put everything into the food processor and pulsed until it was properly chunky.

I prefer more texture to my tapenade, so I don't process to paste like some folks like to do. It's a personal preference, but if you're making it and make it into a paste, I'm still eating it. As an afterthought, I probably could have squeezed a bit of lemon into it. Maybe next time.

As for the potatoes, I oiled them and put them into a 425°F oven for about 15 minutes and then just added some of the tapenade and mixed it all about.

It was goooooood.

With the starch set, vegetable and entree were next.

More clean out the 'fridge time...

A simple salad of a can of kidney beans, green onion, watermelon radish, yellow zucchini, fresh fennel, basil, oregano, thyme, S&P, olive oil, and sherry vinegar. Mix and eat.

I had ribs in the 'fridge, so ribs it was.

They received a quick marinade of soy sauce, bourbon, honey, toasted sesame oil, a pinch of nutmeg, cinnamon, salt and pepper. I baked them in the oven and then finished them on the grill.

It was a riff on a recipe I saw online. They were okay. I'd omit the cinnamon, next time, though, and up the bourbon.

All-in-all, though, a successful dinner.

And there's leftovers!

 


Eggplant Lasagne

I now have another recipe that I never have to make. Ya know how some folks just own a recipe? They make it the best and there's just no reason to try and make it, yourself. On this coast, it's things like Marie's Jelly Strips and Joanna's Wedding Rings. I'm not going to improve on them, so there's just no reason to make them. I'm satisfied getting them when they make them.

The latest in my getting-longer list of recipes is Eggplant Lasagne. Victor owns this one. I'm just not going to bother.

I've been going crazy looking for a post and a recipe because he's made this a lot - but I'll be damned if I can find one. I can't believe I haven't documented this one, before. It's just too damned good.

The premise is quite simple - build a lasagne, but use slices of eggplant as the noodles. It's stellar.

Layers of homemade sauce, floured, breaded, and fried eggplant, ricotta, mozzarella, more sauce, fresh basil... layers upon layers of greatness, covered, baked, and then served to the salivating crowd.

It's that good.

That's a 9x13 pan. Enough lasagne for the neighborhood. I'm going to portion and freeze some tomorrow. I've been emptying out the freezer to hold our summer bounty.

There are more eggplants on the vine - and more dishes to create.

I'm thinking an eggplant souffle... I wonder if I can convince him to start making souffles?!?

Hmmmmmmm.....

 


Shrimp, Veggies, and a Loaf of Bread

There's more food coming into the house right now than is going out. Time for some creative cooking!

Clearing freezer space is pretty important for the next few months. We don't - intentionally - have a freezer in the basement. Having the one freezer attached to the refrigerator keeps me focused on what I have and what needs to be used. It's bad enough that I can pack that sucker to within an inch of its life. I can't even imagine the type of frozen-food-packrat I'd be with another freezer. It's a frightening thought, indeed.

This is better. It makes me think. Two of my mom's continual adages to me were look it up and figure it out. Looking things up has gotten infinitely easier with the advent of the world wide web. And even easier easier with a handheld device capable of searching the world in nanoseconds.  I don't use my phone for phone calls. I use it to look up things just like mom told me to do. It sure beats the World Book Encyclopedia!

Figuring things out was something I needed to learn at a very young age. Rumor has it I was a pretty impatient little tyke. I remember my Aunt Katherine - she was my great uncle Tommy's mother, born in Boonton, New Jersey in 1882 - telling me "when a string is in a knot, patience will untie it."  To this day, when I start getting impatient about figuring something out, that's my cue to stop, sit back, and look anew. Aunt Katherine was the impetus for a couple of firsts for me... Hers was the first funeral I went to in 1956, and going to her funeral was the first time I flew in an airplane - from Bakersfield to Sacramento on United Airlines. The things we remember...

But back to figuring things out...

I planned a clean-out-the-refrigerator dinner just to give me room for things to come. It's time for a good cleaning and cleaning is always easier when there's less stuff to move around. Victor is great at utilizing leftovers and such for lunches, snacks, and his mom's dinners on the nights I work late, so after tonight, it's looking properly barren.

I pulled a bag of shrimp out of the freezer and emptied the vegetable bin of a partial head of cauliflower, a large watermelon radish, green and yellow zucchinis, the fresh purple beans, onions, garlic, and artichoke hearts I had opened yesterday and then then changed my mind about using. And asiago cheese. And lots of fresh herbs from the garden. And white wine.

It really was a quick throw-together dinner - I cooked the veggies on top of the stove and when they were about 2/3 done, I stuck the pan under the broiler to give them some color. I added the shrimp, set it back in for a few minutes, and then stirred in the herbs and the cheese.

Perfection.

And while all that was going on, I made a loaf of bread.

The bread should have been more of a rounded loaf, but I got carried away doing a website and forgot about it outside in Mother Nature's Proofing Box. It really rose huge. I slid it into the oven and it collapsed - but came back as a thin wide loaf. It is really excellent!

It's a take on the Pistachio Bread I made a while ago.

So... Veggies cleared out, refrigerator cleaned, freezer getting emptied for fruits of the garden, fresh bread and another storm hitting right now. That means more green tomatoes down, tomorrow...

Maybe time for a Green Tomato Pie.

 

 


The Trip to Bountiful

Our trip to bountiful is walking outside. The garden is going crazy!

It is so much fun walking outside and picking dinner. The challenge will be properly utilizing everything.

We had a hard time last year keeping up with one eggplant - so this year we planted two. We're brilliant. What can I say?!? I have a few ideas for roasting and canning above and beyond Little Gram's Eggplant - my favorite caponata.

Peppers, galore. Like the tomatoes, they've been taking their time, but when they hit, they're gonna hit. And speaking of hit, the whole garden took a hit last night. We had a thunderstorm come through that beat the hell out of everything. The tomato plants are huge and really overladen with green tomatoes - we're going to see 50 pounds of tomatoes ripen at once - and we spent quite a bit of time this morning re-caging, staking, and tying them back up. We have four or five different varieties out there - and a cherry tomato that came up from last year. We had decided no cherries this year because we just can't use them fast enough, but Mother Nature had a different idea, so I'm going to see about roasting and canning them.

We brought some in that had broken off and thought we'd just paper bag them and see how they come out. Waste not, want not...

I pulled a few beets - there are golden and tiger stripes - and learned a lesson in seed planting along the way. I did not thin them and have a few little clusters of beets that probably won't mature into nice-sized bulbs. But... as long as they taste okay... I'll deal this year. Next year I'll pay more attention and be more diligent.

Our biggest boatload of produce ready right this minute is green beans. We have two bush bean plants and two purple bean plants - and the green beans are really going crazy. We picked about 2 pounds of beans - with a ton more coming in. The purple's are not quite as proliferant, yet, but I have a few for dinner, tonight.

I remember years ago we saw purple beans at a farmer's market in Oakland, CA and paid a fortune for them because they were so unique. We took them home, dropped them into boiling water to blanch, and watched them turn green right before our eyes. I was bummed. All that money and they looked and tasted like green beans. Live and learn.

I did a quick blanch, trim, and then vacuum-packed them for later use.

We have four 8oz bags of fresh beans in the freezer - with more to follow.

Our Food Saver has paid for itself many times over. I really do like being able buy in bulk and freeze things.

With more stuff coming in, tonight's going to be a bit of a clean-out-the-refrigerator ragout of sorts.

With shrimp.

And a loaf of fresh bread.

I know there are bazillions of people out there with bigger and better gardens - and who actually know what they're doing - but we're having fun in our dotage. And that's all that really matters.

 

 

 

 


Sausage, Potatoes, and Jacques Pépin

I just got a new Jacques Pépin cook book yesterday - Essential Pépin: More Than 700 All-Time Favorites from My Life in Food. With very little time to really look through it, I already know it's my new favorite go-to book.

Reading the introduction sealed it for me. Right off the bat he talked about how his cooking has evolved from a young man to a mature man to an older man. How he has changed and evolved from elaborate French to fast food his way. How he has changed and learned.

I can relate. I have run the gamut of complex and complicated to open a can to just about everything in between. And the older I get, the more simplistic I'm liking things. It's pretty much why I've gravitated to rustic Italian foods - a few good ingredients can give you a lot of bang for the buck. In his latest book, I think I'm going to be gravitating towards the rustic French a bit more. Or, rather, Jacques' version of it.

I've always liked his style, have loved his various shows on PBS, and really enjoy his approach to food. He stresses technique - not following a recipe verbatim. If you like something, add it - if you don't leave it out. If you learn how to do a few simple things, you can put a meal together with what you have. You learn how to improvise - and how to make simple into elegant with not much more than the right attitude.

My kinda cook.

Tonight's potato dish from the new book is a classic example. Paillasson Potatoes is, essentially, a big shredded potato pancake - a latke without the egg. It's cooked in a covered skillet, flipped, and cooked on the other side. My first flip resulted in a folded omelette. I unfolded, cooked the bottom a bit more for crispiness and structure, and flipped it like I knew what I was doing. Fearless.

Paillasson Potatoes

adapted from Essential Pépin

  • 3 russet potatoes - about 8 ounces each
  • 2 tbsp oil
  • 1 tbsp butter
  • 1/2 cup green onion, minced
  • S& P, to taste

Peel potatoes and shred on large holes of a box grater. Place in a clean kitchen towel and squeeze out most of the liquid.

Heat the oil and butter in a 10" non-stick skillet. Add the potatoes, onions, and S&P and mix and cook about 2 minutes.

Press the potatoes with a spoon to compact them into the pan. Cover, reduce the heat, and cook about 12 minutes.

Flip the potato mixture over and continue cooking for about 10 more minutes.

Slide onto a serving plate, slice, and serve.

A simple potato, elevated.

It worked really well with the sausages and eggplant. Victor harvested a couple more eggplants yesterday and made another batch of Little Gram's Eggplant. It is one of the best all-purpose eggplant recipes out there. I just heated it up and added some grilled sausages from Martin's at Reading Terminal.

So... off I go to peruse the rest of the book. I feel some more fun meals a'comin'.

 


Sunday Pasta

The first eggplant came off the vine, today! It was smallish - it could have grown  few more days - but it's mid-July. We're ready to start partaking!

There are two eggplant plants out there. We're going to be up to our eyeballs in eggplant, pretty soon but this is one recipe that just can't be beat - and with just a couple of tweaks here and there, it can go from appetizer to entree in nothing flat.

The recipe is Little Gram's. It's her mom's version of a caponata and it really is good. Today, Victor left out the mint and added a chopped hot Italian pepper. Little tweaks...

Little Gram lived for 105 years - and at 93, finally started writing down her recipes. The whole recipe collection is here on the website. They're a lot of fun. One thing to remember is the recipes evolved over time and ingredients weren't measured. Make them, play with them, and enjoy them.

Although this originally was an appetizer, tonight, it was a sauce for pasta.

Eggplant Appetizer

Ingredients:

  • 1 medium eggplant
  • 1 cup chopped celery
  • 3/4 cups halved or chopped green olives
  • 3 cups thinned Italian tomato sauce
  • 3 tablespoons sugar
  • 6 tablespoons vinegar
  • 1/4 chopped Locatelli cheese
  • 2 tablespoons capers
  • fresh basil and mint

Cut eggplant in strips the size of French fries. Salt and let stand about an a hour. Dry on a paper towel. Deep fry in hot oil. Keep oil as hot as possible without burning. Add eggplant one at a time and keep adding one at a time to keep the oil at the same temperature. Fry each one until tender and cooked. Drain on paper towels.

To Make Sauce:

Parboil celery for ten minutes. Add olives and cook another five minutes. Drain all water out of the pot. Add the thinned tomato sauce and boil for ten minutes. Add vinegar and sugar. Cook for three minutes. Add cheese. Make it come to a boil and then turn off heat and allow to cool.

Pour sauce over fried eggplants. Garnish with fresh Basil and mint that have been sliced into very thin strips.

No matter how you do it - it will be great! And if you happen to have a loaf of fresh-baked bread... really go for it!


Baking with Beer

It's one of those perfect days for Mother Nature's Outdoor Proofing Box. Definitely time to bake some bread.

I don't make a lot of basic sandwich loaf breads - I really do have a penchant for more rustic Italian breads - but every now and again I need to get the bread pans out of the cupboard and see if I can still throw together a tender loaf or two.

I have to admit I succeeded, today!

I had a fun conversation with a woman at work the other day about baking bread. She loves it - and will only use her bread machine for the dough. She bakes her bread in the oven, but uses the machine to make the dough. She just finds it easier.

My thought is more power to ya if you're going to make fresh bread. It doesn't matter how you make the dough - by hand or by any number of machines - as long as you make it!

My absolutes and opinions on food and cooking have changed so much over the years, it's sometimes hard to keep track. I remember years ago when a product called Sta-White or some such thing came out. It was to keep lettuce and potatoes and such from browning after cutting. Salad could last on a salad bar for days! It was a miracle! And then, one day, I realized salad staying fresh-looking on a salad bar for days probably wasn't really a good idea. I went through my why make hollandaise sauce when you could buy a can of Aunt Penny's?!?  phase, and still have internal arguments with myself about charcoal vs gas grill. Gas grill is winning, right now. I'm too lazy to plan the charcoal cooking, right now, but I really do like the taste. Maybe after I retire...

For years it was just part of the job to keep up with the fads. Now, I'm heading back towards the basics. I'm over putting together a dinner plate with tweezers. I want simpler meals. Lots of flavor - just not neurotic.

Today's bread started out as a recipe from my Mom's cook book. She really was quite the baker in her day and was never afraid to take a recipe and make it her own.

After looking through the cabinets at ingredients, I finally settled on a Molasses Oatmeal Bread. It's an interesting recipe because the first rise is two hours in the refrigerator. So much for my outdoor proofing box. But the second rise outside was perfect.

I more or less followed the recipe, but the cup and a half of water became a 12oz beer - Avalanche Amber Ale - and the shortening became butter. I pretty much never have shortening in the house and we have a few beers sitting around that neither of us are going to drink... Time to use them up!

The biggest difference in making bread pan loaves and rustic loaves is the amount of liquid. The rustic loaves tend to be a bit drier and I have to resist adding more flour. You do need to play with just about any bread recipe a bit. There are a score of factors in play that affect a loaf - from temperature and humidity to moisture content of the flour - and you learn to feel different doughs and see what they need. And you need to know when not to listen to yourself!

The end result, today, was a damned good loaf. It's properly soft, the crust has just the right amount of chew, and it's going to work for dinner tonight, breakfast toast, and a sandwich for lunch.

The perfect all-purpose bread.


Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

I just love that Victor is retired.

Little things like walking into the house after work and having the house smell like fresh-baked cookies just can't be beat.

Seriously can't be beat.

And it works on so many levels... the way the house smells, the fact that there's absolutely no mess, anywhere, the huge plate of inviting cookies just waiting for someone to start devouring them... It's a rough life I'm forced to live. But I'll do it.

Cookies really are fun - to make and to eat. While I haven't met too many I haven't liked, my preference for a drop cookie usually is a softer cookie. Not an underbaked cookie - but a naturally softer interior achieved by the perfect sugar/butter/egg/flour ratio.

These achieve this.

The recipe is pretty much the basic Better Homes and Garden's Peanut Butter Cookie recipe - from our tattered and worn BH&G Cook Book. He added the chocolate chips and pecans because we had them in the house.

When thinking about cookies, don't overlook the classics. Those old recipes usually used just a few quality ingredients that you probably already have in the house and always come out great.

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

  • 1/2 cup butter, softened
  • 1/2 cup peanut butter
  • 1/2 cup granulated sugar
  • 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1 egg
  • 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
  • 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 cup chocolate chips
  • 1/2 cup chopped pecans
  • Granulated sugar

In a large mixing bowl beat butter and peanut butter with an electric mixer on medium to high speed for 30 seconds. Add the granulated sugar, brown sugar, baking soda, and baking powder. Beat until combined, scraping sides of bowl occasionally. Beat in the egg and vanilla until combined. Beat in as much of the flour as you can with the mixer. Stir in any remaining flour, chocolate chips, and pecans. Cover and chill dough about 1 hour or until easy to handle.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Shape dough into 1-inch balls. Roll balls in additional granulated sugar to coat. Place balls 2 inches apart on an ungreased cookie sheet. Using the tines of a fork, flatten balls by making crisscross marks on top. Bake for 7 to 9 minutes or until bottoms are light brown. Transfer to a wire rack and let cool.

Quick and easy - and sure to put a smile on your face!


Corn with Cotija

Ever look at a picture or a magazine cover and decide you just have to make something? I do it all the time. I don't always rush right into it, but the seed gets planted.

Like the cover on the July issue of Cooking Light magazine... The cover photo was BBQ chicken and grilled corn - two things I rather like.

The BBQ sauce was a Cherry Bourbon BBQ Sauce that I made last month. It was pretty darn good. The corn, however, would take some doing.

For one, I just don't have the patience to cook corn, peel back the husks, remove the silk, tie the husks, dress the corn, and serve. Maybe for a monumental party or something I might consider doing it, but I sure as hell ain't doing it on a Tuesday, know what I mean?!?

But over-the-top corn on the cob has been gnawing at me, so to speak...

Tonight, I decided it was time. I had some Cotija cheese in the 'fridge that needed to come out and say ¡Hola! so I started work.

First thing was the corn was going to be boiled, not grilled. Easier.

The second thing was I wanted spicy.

I had jalapeños in the 'fridge, as well, so they got chopped along with some onion. I put them into a pot with about a half-stick of butter, cumin, Mexican oregano, smoked paprika, salt, and pepper. When the butter melted and started to bubble, I took it off the heat and let it cool. Right before serving I stirred in some chopped parsley.

When the corn was cooked, I slathered the butter mixture on and then sprinkled it liberally with shredded cotija.

Awesomeness!

The beef was a top round steak I sliced and marinated in cumin, jalapeños, Mexican oregano, smoked paprika, grapeseed oil, tequila, and salt & pepper. Quickly grilled. The rice was Goya Arroz Amarillo. Hey, Nonna will eat it.

Dinner really did come out good. It reminded me of how much I miss San Francisco and all the great Mexican food there...

One of these days...

In the meantime, I have to make do with what we have.

And I still have a wedge of Cotija...